Opinion ID: 2167424
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Failure to provide information to the police.

Text: The Varners' argument in their brief on appeal to the effect that the University negligently failed to provide relevant information to the police reads, in its entirety, as follows: In addition to addressing access control, Bates testified that Gallaudet violated the common practice among universities to provide information potentially relevant to a crime investigation to police, as part of their general duty to protect their students, a standard Gallaudet breached by not providing police with any of its information on Mesa's five-year crime spree. The affidavit filed by Gallaudet's expert on this point did not dispute the existence of this standard ; in it, the expert merely disagreed with Bates over whether the standard was breached on the facts of this case. We disagree with this contention. First, Mr. Bates was unable to identify any specific standard of care requiring Gallaudet to collect, without a request or subpoena from police or prosecutors, incident reports relating to non-violent crimes involving a student who had not been identified as a potential suspect. Rather, Mr. Bates relied solely upon the general duty that a university would have to protect its students from harm from others. He went on to concede that he knew of no standard specifically requiring a college or university to provide such information to the police during a homicide investigation. An expert may not rely upon a general duty of care to establish an objective standard requiring specific conduct. See Carmichael, 577 A.2d at 315 (when normative standards are used by an expert as a basis for assessing negligence, at the very least the expert must be specific as to what standards were violated and how they were violated). Mr. Bates was unable to point to any specific standard of care with which the University failed to comply, nor could he identify a single college or university that did what he claimed Gallaudet should have done. On this record, we find unpersuasive the Varners' claim that the University was negligent by failing to volunteer information about Mesa to the police. Moreover, within a day of the Plunkett murder, Gallaudet security personnel specifically identified Mesa to the police as a student who had engaged in suspicious behavior, and they suggested that the officers talk to Mesa. The police interviewed Mesa on at least two separate occasions and reported to Gallaudet that Mesa had been cleared. It is undisputed that the police believedand informed Gallaudet representatives that they believedthat Minch was responsible for Plunkett's murder. Further, the investigating officers never informed Gallaudet, prior to Benjamin Varner's murder, that the Plunkett homicide a few months earlier had involved theft. Under these circumstances, Mesa's history of theft had no apparent relevance to the investigation of Plunkett's death. Moreover, the police never requested, and the prosecutors or grand jury never issued subpoenas for, any documents relating to disciplinary action against Mesa or any other student. As a result, Gallaudet was not apprised that Mesa's disciplinary recordsor, more broadly, information relating to past thefts on campus would be of any use to the police in determining the identity of Plunkett's killer. [13] There is no suggestion in this record that the University impeded the investigation of the murder of Eric Plunkett in any way, or declined to provide any assistance requested by the police. Both police witnesses testified at their depositions that Gallaudet cooperated fully in the investigation of the Plunkett homicide, and that University representatives provided all of the documents and evidence that the police requested. In sum, the Varners have not identified any standard requiring the University to do anything that it did not do in order to assist the police in identifying Plunkett's murderer.
For the foregoing reasons, we agree with the trial court that the University was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law.