Opinion ID: 784482
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Ministerial Neglect Claim

Text: 72 Hayut maintained below, and asserts on appeal, that federal regulations, see 34 C.F.R. § 106.8, and state regulations, see N.Y. Comp.Codes R. & Regs. tit. 9, § 4.19 (Executive Order No. 19), required the individual defendants (1) immediately to notify the AAO of any sexual harassment complaint, (2) expeditiously and thoroughly to investigate all such allegations, and (3) to follow up and make sure that any harm inflicted on the alleged victim as a result of the harassment was rectified. Because, the argument goes, none of the individual defendants notified the AAO, investigated the harassment, or followed up with Hayut in the months after her complaint, they committed ministerial neglect under New York law. 73 We note, however, that there is no independent cause of action for ministerial neglect in New York. Rather, a claim of ministerial neglect merely removes the issue of governmental immunity from a given case. Lauer v. City of New York, 95 N.Y.2d 95, 99, 711 N.Y.S.2d 112, 733 N.E.2d 184 (2000). In other words, [m]inisterial negligence may not be immunized, but it is not necessarily tortious. Id. Accordingly, there must be some showing that the conduct by the official violated some duty to the injured party directly, as opposed to a general duty to society. Id. at 100, 711 N.Y.S.2d 112, 733 N.E.2d 184 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Without a duty running directly to the injured person there can be no liability in damages, however careless the conduct or foreseeable the harm. Id. at 96, 711 N.Y.S.2d 112, 733 N.E.2d 184. If, however, a duty to a particular individual or class is voluntarily assumed, even if it is one that would not otherwise exist except to the general public, the duty must be performed in a nonnegligent manner. See Florence v. Goldberg, 44 N.Y.2d 189, 404 N.Y.S.2d 583, 587, 375 N.E.2d 763 (1978) ([W]here a municipality assumes a duty to a particular person or class of persons, it must perform that duty in a nonnegligent manner, notwithstanding that absent its voluntary assumption of that duty, none would have otherwise existed.). 74 Hayut has identified no duty that the individual defendants owed directly to her, as opposed to the general public. Nor has she shown that the individual defendants voluntarily assumed a duty to her or to a specific class of persons, to which she belongs. And her assertions of a duty are not supported by the regulations upon which she relies. Moreover, to the extent that any duty arose under cited federal or state regulations, the individual defendants were in complete compliance with those regulations. Both 34 C.F.R. § 106.8 and Executive Order No. 19 require federally-funded educational institutions to do no more than designate an employee as an AAO who is to receive complaints and to disseminate contact information to students. They do not impose a duty on each and every school official within that institution to report sexual harassment allegations to the designated AAO. 75 It follows that the district court properly granted summary judgment on this claim.