Opinion ID: 627228
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jane’s Young Age

Text: The Does (and the dissenters) rely largely upon Jane’s young age to distinguish this case from the many others in which we have held that schools have no special relationship with their students. We do not find Jane’s age to be a relevant distinguishing characteristic for purposes of the special relationship analysis.5 Although it is true that in our prior cases we have dealt with children older than Jane, we have never relied upon the age of the student at issue to resolve the special relationship analysis. Rather, we have said that schools do not have a special relationship with students because “[p]arents remain the primary source for the basic needs of their children.” Hillsboro, 113 F.3d at 1415. This is as much true for elementary students as it is for high school students. No matter the age of the child, parents are the primary providers of food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety for their minor children. Thus, school children are returned to their parents’ care at the end of each day, and are able to seek assistance from their families on a daily basis, unlike those who are incarcerated or involuntarily committed. 5 The Does (and our dissenting colleagues) contort a statement made by the Supreme Court in a wholly different context in Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977), into a suggestion that the Court would find a special relationship in this case. Addressing claims brought by a group of students alleging that corporal punishment in public schools was prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, the Court stated that “[t]he schoolchild has little need for the protections of the Eighth Amendment” because “the public school remains an open institution,” and “[e]xcept perhaps when very young, [a] child is not physically restrained from leaving school during school hours.” Id. at 670. The Court then listed a number of reasons why schools are open institutions. Yet the Court did not suggest that a public school is no less an open institution if a student is restrained from freely leaving the school due to her young age or if a student is apart from teachers or other students, whether on campus or off. Indeed, in an opinion written far more recently than Ingraham, the Court explicitly stated in dicta that its opinions should not be read to “suggest that public schools as a general matter have such a degree of control over children as to give rise to a constitutional ‘duty to protect.’” Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 655 (1995) (citing DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200). 13 No. 09-60406 Jane’s immaturity is insufficient to distinguish this case from our decisions in Walton and Hillsboro. The suggestion that we ought to examine an individual’s characteristics to determine whether the state has assumed a duty to care for that person is wholly unsupported by precedent. The situations in which the state assumes a duty of care sufficient to create a special relationship are strictly enumerated and the restrictions of each situation are identical. In the circumstances of incarceration, involuntary institutionalization, and foster care, the state has, through an established set of laws and procedures, rendered the person in its care completely unable to provide for his or her basic needs and it assumes a duty to provide for these needs. Neither the Supreme Court nor this court has ever suggested that anything less than such a total restriction is sufficient to create a special relationship with the state, regardless of the age or competence of the individual. See DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200 (“The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State’s knowledge of the individual’s predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf.”). Moreover, the focus upon Jane’s young age makes an essentially arbitrary distinction between the thirteen- and fourteen-year-old students in Walton and Hillsboro and nine-year-old students like Jane. If we were to accept this argument, schools would be required to evaluate the maturity of each student to determine whether the school has a special relationship with that student. Indeed, some students could “age out” of constitutional protection over the course of one academic year. A constitutional duty to protect a student from harm does not depend on the maturity of the student, a factor not in the control of the state. Through their public school systems, states take on the responsibility of educating students, but, no matter the age of the student, public schools simply do not take on the responsibility of providing “food, clothing, shelter, medical 14 No. 09-60406 care, and reasonable safety” for the students they educate. See DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200. Particularly instructive on this question is the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in Patel v. Kent School District, 648 F.3d 965 (9th Cir. 2011). There, a developmentally disabled student had several sexual encounters with a classmate in a restroom adjacent to her classroom. Id. at 968. The student’s parents had requested that she remain under adult supervision at all times because her disability prevented her from recognizing dangerous situations and caused her to act inappropriately with others. Id. at 968-70. Nevertheless, the student’s teacher allowed her to use the restroom alone in order to foster her development. Id. at 969. The Ninth Circuit held that compulsory school attendance laws do not create a special relationship between public schools and students that would require schools to protect the students from harm. Id. at 973-74. Of particular import to this case, the Ninth Circuit also rejected the student’s contention that the school was required to protect against her “special vulnerabilities.” Id. at 974. The court reasoned that “[i]n the case of a minor child, custody does not exist until the state has so restrained the child’s liberty that the parents cannot care for the child’s basic needs,” and the student’s disability did not prevent her parents from caring for her basic needs. Id. (citing DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 199-201). Under the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning, the existence of a special relationship does not depend on the characteristics of the individual. Consistent with Patel, we conclude that Jane’s young age and immaturity do not provide a basis for finding a special relationship with her school. Our conclusion that no special relationship exists between nine-year-old Jane and her school is consistent with the decisions of our sister circuits, four of which have addressed cases involving children who were approximately the same age or even younger than Jane. See Allen v. Susquehanna Twp. Sch. Dist., 15 No. 09-60406 233 F. App’x 149, 151-53 (3d Cir. 2007) (finding no special relationship between school and developmentally disabled eleven-year-old student who left school grounds and was subsequently killed); Worthington v. Elmore Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 160 F. App’x 877, 878, 881 (11th Cir. 2005) (finding no special relationship between school and developmentally disabled seven-year-old student who was sexually assaulted by another student on a school bus); Stevenson, 3 F. App’x at 30-31 (finding no special relationship between school and ten-year-old boy who had been beaten up repeatedly by bullies during the school day); Maldonado, 975 F.2d at 728, 731-33 (finding no special relationship between school and eleven-year-old boy who died of accidental strangulation in an unsupervised cloakroom adjacent to his classroom during the school day). While we should have every reason to expect that public schools can and will provide for the safety of public school students, no matter their age, our precedents, and the decisions of every other circuit to have considered this issue, dictate that schools are simply not constitutionally required to ensure students’ safety from private actors. Despite her young age, Jane was not attending the school through the “affirmative exercise of [state] power,” DeShaney, 489 U.S. at 200; she was attending the school because her parents voluntarily chose to send her there (as one of several ways to fulfill their compulsory education obligations), and they remained responsible for her basic needs.6