Opinion ID: 3004002
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Willful and Wanton Misconduct

Text: Under Illinois Law Moving to Doe-2’s Illinois tort claims, we begin with a comment on subject matter jurisdiction. The district court had supplemental jurisdiction over Doe-2’s state-law claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), since these claims were part of the same “case or controversy” as Doe-2’s Title IX claim over which the court had original jurisdiction. Ordinarily, when a district court dismisses the federal claim conferring original jurisdiction before trial, it relin10 No. 09-1936 quishes supplemental jurisdiction over any state-law claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). Hansen v. Bd. of Trs. of Hamilton Se. Sch. Corp., 551 F.3d 599, 607 (7th Cir. 2008). Here, following the dismissal of Doe-2’s Title IX claim under Rule 12(b)(6), nothing indicates that the district court or the parties thought of dismissing Doe-2’s statelaw claims without prejudice for the Illinois courts to resolve. Given the relatively novel issues of Illinois tort law presented by Doe-2’s case, it would have been appropriate to consider such a dismissal. See id. at 608 (observing that the supplemental claims did not “entangle the federal courts in difficult issues of state law”). Still, the failure below to consider the possibility of dismissing Doe-2’s supplemental claims does not preclude our review. Although a district court may relinquish supplemental jurisdiction following the dismissal of all federal claims, it is not required to do so, unless the federal claims are frivolous and so do not engage the jurisdiction of the federal courts. CropLife Am., Inc. v. City of Madison, 432 F.3d 732, 734 (7th Cir. 2005). We have concluded that Doe-2’s federal claim under Title IX was properly dismissed, but this claim was not so weak as to be frivolous. Further, the factual basis for Doe-2’s statelaw claims was indistinguishable from the asserted basis for her federal claim, and the district judge had devoted substantial court time and resources to analyzing the complaint’s factual allegations before addressing the state-law theories. And finally, Doe-2 chose to bring all of her claims in federal court and never requested the alternative disposition of a § 1367(c)(3) dismissal of her state-law claims should her Title IX claim fail. See No. 09-1936 11 Nightingale Home Healthcare, Inc. v. Anodyne Therapy, LLC, No. 09-2523, 2009 WL 4894242, at  (7th Cir. Dec. 21, 2009) (resolving supplemental claims on appeal where no party argued for relinquishment); CropLife, 432 F.3d at 734 (same). Accordingly, we will take up the merits of Doe-2’s Illinois tort claims. Under Illinois law, a plaintiff pleading willful and wanton misconduct must establish the same basic elements of a negligence claim, which are the existence of a duty, breach of that duty, and an injury proximately resulting from the breach. Krywin v. Chi. Transit Auth., 909 N.E.2d 887, 890 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009). A willful and wanton claim has the additional requirement that the breach be not merely negligent, but with “conscious disregard for the welfare of the plaintiff.” Ortega-Piron ex rel. Doe v. Chi. Bd. of Educ., 820 N.E.2d 418, 423 (Ill. 2004). In trying to identify a duty that the defendants owed to her, Doe-2 runs into the familiar rule that a person ordinarily “has no duty to act affirmatively to protect another from criminal attack by a third person.” Iseberg v. Gross, 879 N.E.2d 278, 284 (Ill. 2007) (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314 (1965)). The direct source of Doe- 2’s injury was a criminal sexual assault by Jon White, a third party whom these McLean County defendants didn’t control at the time of the assault. So even if the defendants knew that White was a sexual harasser who likely would assault Doe-2 or other Urbana students, these facts alone would not create a duty under Illinois common law to protect Doe-2. That is so even though Illinois statutory law would require the defendants to act. Under the Illinois Abused 12 No. 09-1936 and Neglected Child Reporting Abuse Act, “school personnel” who have “reasonable cause to believe” that a student has suffered abuse must notify the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. 325 ILCS 5/4. But ANCRA’s mandate to report child abuse does not create any duty to the abused child enforceable under Illinois tort law. In Cuyler v. United States, 362 F.3d 949, 952-53 (7th Cir. 2004), we explained that an ANCRA violation does not give rise to a private tort action unless the violation also breaches a common law duty of care owed to the plaintiff. The Illinois Appellate Court similarly concluded in Tanya S. ex rel. Doe 1 v. N. Cent. Behavioral Health Sys., Inc., 816 N.E.2d 4, 7-8 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004), that ANCRA did not provide a private cause of action for a psychology clinic’s failure to report sexual abuse by one of its patients. The court found “no evidence that the statute was designed to . . . impose civil liability on those who fail to report.” Id. at 8. From this authority it follows that Doe-2 cannot rely on the defendants’ alleged violation of ANCRA’s reporting requirements to support her private tort claims; she must identify a common law duty owed to her by the defendants. One common law duty to protect against third-party attacks arises where the defendant has a “special relationship” with the plaintiff. Iseberg, 879 N.E.2d at 284. Illinois courts have recognized that some relationships between public school districts and their students create a duty to protect, but only under certain circumstances. A school district does not have a duty to protect its student body at large against the general risk of criminal attack, even if the attacker is another student subject to the disNo. 09-1936 13 trict’s authority. See Lawson v. City of Chi., 662 N.E.2d 1377, 1389 (Ill. App. Ct. 1996) (dismissing a negligence claim arising out of a school board’s failure to prevent one student from shooting another, where the board lacked knowledge that the shooter had a gun or that the victim was in particular danger); Thames v. Bd. of Educ., 645 N.E.2d 445, 449-50 (Ill. App. Ct. 1994) (same). On the other hand, a school district with unique knowledge that one of its teachers or students poses a particular threat to another student may acquire a duty to protect. See Ortega-Piron, 820 N.E.2d at 423-24 (recognizing a willful and wanton claim for the school board’s failure to prevent a known sexually aggressive student from assaulting a known mentally disabled student); Green v. Carlinville Cmty. Unit Sch. Dist. No. 1, 887 N.E.2d 451, 456 (Ill. App. Ct. 2008) (holding that a school district owed the highest degree of care to a student on a school bus, such that the district could be liable for the sexual abuse of the student by the school bus driver); Doe v. Dimovski, 783 N.E.2d 193, 200 (Ill. App. Ct. 2003) (finding allegations that the school board knew of a teacher’s sexual misconduct with one female student sufficient to show a conscious disregard for the safety of other female students). Here, Doe-2 has not alleged a special relationship that would trigger a duty to protect on the part of the McLean County defendants. Doe-2 was an Urbana student not subject to these defendants’ control, and Doe-2 makes no allegation that the defendants had any contact with her before this lawsuit. Doe-2 does not cite, and we are not aware of, any Illinois case imposing a duty to protect under these circumstances, where both the 14 No. 09-1936 student-victim and the place of injury are outside of the defendant school’s authority. Cf. Dimovski, 783 N.E.2d at 200 (recognizing the school board’s potential liability to several of its female students with whom the abusive teacher had daily contact); Pesek v. Discepolo, 475 N.E.2d 3, 5 (Ill. App. Ct. 1985) (dismissing a claim against a school for failing to prevent one of its students from sexually assaulting a member of the public off school grounds). The defendants did complete Urbana’s Verification of Teaching Experience form on behalf of White at around the time that the Urbana School District hired him, so we may assume that they suspected that White would come into contact with Urbana students. Still, foreseeability of a risk that White would harass Urbana students is not enough to create a duty to protect, absent a special relationship. See Iseberg, 879 N.E.2d at 288-89 (declining to abandon the special relationship doctrine in favor of an affirmative duty to prevent reasonably foreseeable injuries). Although the defendants had no duty to protect Doe-2 from White’s third-party attack, another possible tort theory is that it was the defendants’ own actions that injured Doe-2. Illinois common law imposes a duty of “reasonable care to avoid injuring other people.” Cuyler, 362 F.3d at 953. While persons generally have no duty to protect against dangers created by third parties, they do have a duty to protect against harms created by their own conduct. See id.; Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314 cmt. d (1965) (The rule that an actor ordinarily has no No. 09-1936 15 duty to protect others “applies only where the peril in which the actor knows that the other is placed is not due to any active force which is under the actor’s control.”); cf. Thames, 645 N.E.2d at 451 (observing that the student had not alleged that school officials “created the position of peril that was ultimately injurious”). It is not entirely implausible to characterize the defendants’ actions, rather than White’s, as the source of Doe-2’s injury. Doe-2 argues that the defendants took deliberate steps to secure a new position for White in the Urbana School District, all while concealing White’s known history of sexual harassment. By directing White toward Urbana students in this manner, the defendants created the risk that White would harass Doe-2 and, in so doing, assumed a duty to protect her. Ultimately, however, we conclude that Doe-2’s allegations do not support the theory that the defendants created the risk that White would injure her. Although Doe-2 claims that the defendants carefully orchestrated White’s transfer to Urbana, none of the alleged facts indicates that the defendants encouraged the Urbana School District to hire White or otherwise promoted his employment there. On the contrary, Doe-2’s own complaint charges that the Urbana School District never bothered to perform the ministerial act of checking White’s employment record from the McLean County School District before hiring him. As noted, the defendants did complete Urbana’s Verification of Teaching Experience form and a letter of recommendation on behalf of White, neither of which men16 No. 09-1936 tioned White’s sexual harassment. Doe-2 makes much of the verification form, and in particular, the defendants’ alleged misrepresentation on the form that White taught for a full “180 days” during the 2004-05 school year, even though the defendants entered into the severance agreement with White in April 2005, before the end of the school year. Yet even if the defendants did misrepresent White’s employment record in their correspondence to the Urbana School District, Doe-2 fails to explain how this misrepresentation would breach any duty owed to her. A referring employer may be liable for failing to disclose a former employee’s misconduct, if the employer has a special or fiduciary relationship with the plaintiff that raises a duty to speak. Neptuno Treuhand-Und Verwaltungsgesellschaft Mbh v. Arbor, 692 N.E.2d 812, 81718 (Ill. App. Ct. 1998). As we have discussed, Doe-2 has not alleged a special relationship—indeed, “no prior relationship of any kind,” id. at 817—with the defendants that would trigger a duty to speak. Perhaps McLean County’s purported misrepresentation of White’s employment record would be material to a misrepresentation claim brought by the Urbana School District. (We express no opinion on the merits of such a claim.) As for Doe-2, the defendants never said anything to her about White, so we cannot see how any misrepresentations in the recommendation letter or verification form sent to Urbana would advance Doe-2’s tort claims. See Sassak v. City of Park Ridge, 431 F. Supp. 2d 810, 819 (N.D. Ill. 2006) (rejecting abused arrestees’ misrepresentation claim against a former employer who concealed the abusing No. 09-1936 17 officer’s misconduct on the ground that the arrestees never learned of the misrepresentation). In sum, although Doe-2 would have us infer that the defendants actively facilitated the placement of White in her Urbana classroom, the alleged facts do not support that conclusion. The essence of Doe-2’s complaint is that the defendants should have told Urbana school officials and other authorities about White’s suspected harassment. Their failure to do so did not breach any duty owed to Doe-2. No doubt the defendants’ alleged non-disclosure of White’s sexual harassment is troubling, and we hope that school officials would be more proactive in protecting students, even those outside of their own districts, from abusive teachers. In that regard, we emphasize that nothing in our decision today should suggest that school districts can quietly shuffle abusive teachers on to the next district with impunity. ANCRA imposes criminal penalties for willful violations of its reporting requirements, 325 ILCS 5/4-5/4.02, which we trust will give Illinois school officials an extra incentive (if they needed one) to disclose their teachers’ known acts of sexual harassment. Our decision also does not leave student victims like Doe-2 without a remedy for their school districts’ failure to respond to harassment by teachers. As mentioned above, Doe-2 has already settled with the Urbana defendants who employed White at the time of Doe-2’s injury. We also note, but reserve comment on, another case pending against these McLean County defendants 18 No. 09-1936 brought by McLean County students abused by White. Doe ex rel. Doe v. White, 627 F. Supp. 2d 905 (C.D. Ill. 2009).