Opinion ID: 3025340
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Policy/Custom of Inaction

Text: Kline argues that the District Court erred in granting summary judgment because there were material issues of fact regarding whether Hamburg had a custom or policy of deliberate indifference that violated her constitutional right to be free from sexual abuse. In Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 694 (1978), the Supreme Court stated that a municipality can be liable under Section 1983 if its policy or custom causes a constitutional injury. With respect to a sexual abuse claim: [i]n order to establish liability a plaintiff must demonstrate both that the defendant’s policy, practice, or custom played an affirmative role in bringing about the sexual abuse and that the defendant acted with deliberate indifference to that abuse. In order to establish deliberate indifference on the part of the defendant, “something more culpable [must be shown] than a negligent failure to recognize [a] high risk of harm” to plaintiffs. Black by Black v. Indiana Area Sch. Dist., 985 F.2d 707, 712-13 (3d Cir. 1993)(quoting Colburn v. Upper Darby Twp., 946 F.2d 1017, 1025 (3d Cir. 1991)). Kline conceded that neither she, nor her mother, complained to any school official about Mansfield’s conduct. Instead, Kline based her claim on the knowledge that school officials possessed regarding the contacts between her and Mansfield. For example, Kline noted that she was suspended from school after she skipped band rehearsal to be 8 with Mansfield in his classroom. She also noted that teachers complained that she was spending too much time with Mansfield in his classroom. Furthermore, she stated that her seventh grade teachers stated at one point that she was not to be in Mansfield’s room for any reason. Finally, Kline stated that the school failed to enforce its policy of not allowing seventh grade students in the sixth grade hallway. Kline’s evidence does not create a material issue of fact that Hamburg was deliberately indifferent. At best, it shows that Hamburg might have been negligent in failing to recognize a high risk of harm.5 However, this does not establish a material issue of fact with respect to this claim. See id., cf., Shepard v. Kemp, 912 F. Supp. 120, 5 On appeal, Kline compares her case to Stoneking v. Bradford Area School District, 882 F.2d 720 (3d Cir. 1989), Craig v. Lima City Schools Board of Education, 384 F. Supp. 2d 1136 (N.D. Ohio 2005) and C.M. v. Southeast Delco School District, 828 F. Supp. 1179 (E.D. Pa. 1993). These cases are all distinguishable. In Stoneking, the record revealed complaints about sexual assaults of female students by teachers and staff. The vice-principal recorded these allegations in a secret file at home rather than in the teachers’ personnel file. See Stoneking, 882 F.2d at 728-29. Additionally, the defendants continued to give the teachers excellent performance evaluations and discouraged and/or intimidated parents from pursuing their complaints. See id. Unlike Stoneking, the record in this case did not show that the school officials had notice of any sexual misconduct. Craig and C.M. are also similarly distinguishable. In Craig, teachers saw the plaintiff go into her teacher’s classroom with the lights out, the door closed and the shades drawn. Teachers also saw the plaintiff and her sexual abuser go to his van alone and leave school property together on a daily basis. The two would sit together on bus trips and cuddle underneath a blanket and fall asleep against one another. Furthermore, once the superintendent found out about the relationship between the teacher and the plaintiff, he wrote a memo and entitled it, “consensual sex.” See Craig, 384 F. Supp. 2d at 1148. In C.M., the District Court noted that there was a student complaint about a teacher and that staff members complained to school officials that the teacher was a “depraved and dangerous” man. These complaints also disclosed the sexual overtones of the teacher’s behavior. See 828 F. Supp. at 1185. 9 127-28 (M.D. Pa. 1995)(noting that officials were aware of reports that children were spending inordinate amount of time with teacher, but that there was no disclosure of any wrongdoing). Therefore, the District Court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the Defendants on this claim.6