Court Opinion

ID: 9951021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 15:18:36.376834+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:35:56.259646
License: Public Domain

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23-P-111                                                Appeals Court

MATTHEW THEISZ        vs.   MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
                                 & another.1

                                No. 23-P-111.

           Suffolk.         November 8, 2023. - March 15, 2024.

              Present:      Rubin, Massing, & Desmond, JJ.

Massachusetts Tort Claims Act. Assault and Battery. Bus.
     Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Public
     Employment. Labor, Public employment. Negligence,
     Employer, Vicarious liability. Immunity from suit.

     Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on
September 28, 2016.

     The case was heard by Catherine H. Ham, J., on a motion for
summary judgment.

     David A. Mills & John J. Bonistalli for Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority.
     Frank J. Federico, Jr. (Michael P. Holden also present) for
the plaintiff.

     MASSING, J.      The plaintiff, Matthew Theisz, brought an

action under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act (MTCA), G. L.

     1   Derek Smith.
                                                                    2

c. 258, alleging that the defendant public employer, the

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), was negligent

in hiring, training, supervising, and retaining its employee,

defendant Derek Smith, resulting in a violent incident in which

Smith, while on duty, assaulted and beat the plaintiff.     The

MBTA filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that it was

immune from suit under sections 10 (b) and 10 (j) of G. L.

c. 258, and that the record did not support a claim of negligent

hiring.   A Superior Court judge denied the motion, and the MBTA

filed this interlocutory appeal.2   On appeal, the MBTA presses

only its claim of immunity under § 10 (j).   We affirm the denial

of summary judgment, holding that § 10 (j) does not apply to a

claim of negligent hiring, training, supervision, and retention

of a public employee.

     Background.   The summary judgment materials, taken in the

light most favorable to the plaintiff, see Augat, Inc. v.

Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 410 Mass. 117, 120 (1991); Jane J. v.

Commonwealth, 91 Mass. App. Ct. 325, 327 (2017), establish that

on March 3, 2015, Smith was assigned to the number 896 bus route

in the vicinity of Central Square in Lynn.   The plaintiff, lost

in Lynn at night in blizzard conditions, saw a bus go by and

     2 See Brum v. Dartmouth, 428 Mass. 684, 688 (1999) (denial
of claim of immunity from suit immediately appealable); Baptista
v. Bristol County Sheriff's Dep't, 100 Mass. App. Ct. 841, 860
(2022) (same).
                                                                    3

attempted to wave it down to ask where he could find a bus to

Boston.   When the bus passed him without stopping, the plaintiff

banged on the back door.    The bus eventually stopped, and the

plaintiff banged on the front door before the driver, Smith,

opened it.     After words were exchanged, Smith began yelling at

the plaintiff, then got out of his seat, approached the door,

and kicked snow from the bottom of the bus at the plaintiff.

The plaintiff called Smith an "asshole"; Smith lunged at him.

The plaintiff tried to run away, but Smith punched him in the

back of the head, causing the plaintiff to fall, and then Smith

kicked and stomped on the plaintiff's head.    Bleeding from his

head, the plaintiff was transported to the hospital by

ambulance, where he was treated for a traumatic brain injury.

     Smith, who had been hired as a part-time bus operator in

December 2010, about four years before the incident involving

the plaintiff, had a history of infractions based on unsafe

driving and complaints based on his hostile or insubordinate

interactions with the public and his supervisors.    He was

promoted to a full-time position in March 2013.     Then, in

October 2013, he attacked and beat a passenger, crashing the bus

he was driving into three parked cars.    The MBTA suspended Smith

for one day.    Smith was not disciplined after an incident in

February 2014, when a police officer stopped Smith's bus for a

traffic violation and then arrested Smith for refusing to
                                                                     4

provide his license and registration, leaving the passengers on

his bus stranded.    Thus, Smith was still a full-time operator,

in good standing, when he attacked the plaintiff.

     The plaintiff filed a complaint in the Superior Court in

2016, asserting three tort claims against Smith and two claims

against the MBTA, one for negligent hiring, training, and

supervision, and one alleging the MBTA's vicarious liability for

Smith's actions.    After some procedural skirmishing,3 in 2019,

the plaintiff amended his complaint against the MBTA to allege

negligent hiring, training, and supervision in count IV and

negligent retention in count V.    In denying the MBTA's motion

for summary judgment, the motion judge treated the two counts as

a single claim for negligent hiring, training, supervision, and

retention, as do we.

     Discussion.    Public employers are exempt from liability for

the intentional torts of their employees, including assault and

battery.   See G. L. c. 258, § 10 (c).   This immunity, however,

     3 The MBTA filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings,
arguing that public employers are immune from vicarious
liability claims based on intentional misconduct and that the
plaintiff failed to make proper presentment of the negligent
hiring, training, and supervision claim. A Superior Court judge
allowed the MBTA's motion as to the vicarious liability claim
and denied the motion as to the negligence claim. The MBTA
appealed, and the Supreme Judicial Court, taking the case on its
own initiative, affirmed the order of the Superior Court judge.
See Theisz v. Massachusetts Bay Transp. Auth., 481 Mass. 1012
(2018).
                                                                   5

does not extend to claims of negligent hiring, supervision, and

retention because such claims are based on the conduct of the

employer rather than the employee.    See Dobos v. Driscoll, 404

Mass. 634, 653, cert. denied, 493 U.S. 850 (1989); Doe v.

Blandford, 402 Mass. 831, 836-838 (1988) (Blandford).

     When an employer hires an employee who will interact with

members of the public, the employer has the duty to exercise

reasonable care in selecting employees who will not endanger the

public.   See Foster v. The Loft, Inc., 26 Mass. App. Ct. 289,

290 (1988).   "Once an employee is hired, '[e]mployers are

responsible for exercising reasonable care to ensure that their

employees do not cause foreseeable harm to a foreseeable class

of plaintiffs.'"   Cottrell v. Laidley, 103 Mass. App. Ct. 483,

493 (2023), quoting Helfman v. Northeastern Univ., 485 Mass.

308, 326 (2020).   This responsibility extends to public

employers.    As relevant here, "where the supervisory officials

allegedly had, or should have had, knowledge of a public

employee's assaultive behavior, it is the supervisors' conduct,

rather than the employee's intentional conduct, that is the true

focus of the case."   Dobos, 404 Mass. at 653.

     The MBTA argues that it is immune from liability for the

plaintiff's negligence claim based on G. L. c. 258, § 10 (j).

Section 10 (j) exempts public employers from liability for "any

claim based on an act or failure to act to prevent or diminish
                                                                   6

the harmful consequences of a condition or situation, including

the violent or tortious conduct of a third person, which is not

originally caused by the public employer or any other person

acting on behalf of the public employer."   G. L. c. 258,

§ 10 (j).    The MBTA argues that § 10 (j) applies because the

plaintiff's claim is based on the MBTA's failure to prevent

Smith's violent conduct.   Keeping in mind that the plaintiff's

claim of negligent hiring, supervision, and retention is based

on the conduct of the MBTA and not on Smith's conduct, it is

evident that § 10 (j) is inapplicable.

     The reference to "the violent or tortious conduct of a

third person" in § 10 (j) does not include conduct of public

employees.   In cases in which § 10 (j) has been held to exempt

public employers from liability for failing to prevent the

violent conduct of a third party, the third party in question

has never been a public employee.   Limiting our sample to the

§ 10 (j) cases cited by the MBTA in its principal brief, a

public school was not liable for injuries to a student caused by

another student pushing him down a flight of stairs, see Cormier

v. Lynn, 479 Mass. 35, 36, 41-42 (2018); the parole board was

not liable for the murder of a police officer by a former

prisoner who had been released on parole, see Kent v.

Commonwealth, 437 Mass. 312, 313, 317-320 (2002); a public

school was not liable for the death of a student caused by armed
                                                                   7

assailants trespassing on school grounds, see Brum v. Dartmouth,

428 Mass. 684, 686-687, 696 (1999); State agencies were not

liable for the beating of one youth committed to a department of

youth services facility by another, see Baptiste v. Executive

Office of Health & Human Servs., 97 Mass. App. Ct. 110, 112-113,

119-121 (2020), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 2626 (2021); a public

school was not liable for injuries caused to one player on the

student field hockey team who was struck in the face by another

player's stick, see Stahr v. Lincoln Sudbury Regional High

School Dist., 93 Mass. App. Ct. 243, 245, 247 (2018); and a

State hospital was not liable where one patient raped another

patient who had been committed to the facility, see Jane J., 91

Mass. App. Ct. at 326-327, 330-332.   Indeed, to interpret

"tortious conduct of a third person" in § 10 (j) to include

conduct of public employees would give public employers immunity

for claims that the MTCA was specifically enacted to include:

claims based on the "negligent or wrongful" -- that is, tortious

-- conduct of public employees.   See G. L. c. 258, § 2 ("Public

employers shall be liable for injury or loss of property or

personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act

or omission of any public employee while acting within the scope

of his office or employment").

     Nor do we accept the MBTA's argument that a claim of

negligent hiring, training, supervision, or retention is a claim
                                                                   8

based on the "failure to act to prevent or diminish the harmful

consequences" of a public employee's conduct within the meaning

of § 10 (j).   As previously noted, negligent hiring, training,

supervision, or retention claims are based on the negligent

conduct of the public employer rather than on the intentional

conduct of the public employee.     See Dobos, 404 Mass. at 653.

If the MBTA knew or should have known of Smith's assaultive

behavior, it was the MBTA's promotion and retention of Smith,

not its failure to prevent his assault on the plaintiff, that

forms the basis of its liability.    See Blandford, 402 Mass. at

838.

       Although we have explained that "a third person" under

§ 10 (j) cannot be a public employee, the negligent promotion

and retention of Smith could also be viewed as an "original

cause" of the plaintiff's injury within the meaning of § 10 (j).

An act is an "original cause" if it "materially contributed to

creating the specific 'condition or situation' that resulted in

the harm."   Kent, 437 Mass. at 319, quoting G. L. c. 258,

§ 10 (j).    Examples "of the relationship between affirmative

acts and specific conditions or situations resulting in harm

that might fall within these parameters" include "the

recommendation of a convicted rapist for employment in a trailer

park that gave him access to keys of all of the units of

potential victims in the park" or "the hiring of a guidance
                                                                     9

counselor who subsequently abused his students."     Kent, supra at

319 n.9 (discussing Bonnie W. v. Commonwealth, 419 Mass. 122

[1994], and Blandford, 402 Mass. 831 [1988]).      The MBTA's

continued employment of an undisciplined, volatile employee with

a track record of hostile and violent tendencies against riders

is an affirmative act of this nature.

     Conclusion.    We agree with the motion judge that the

plaintiff's claim for negligent hiring, training, supervision,

and retention is not barred by § 10 (j).4    The order denying the

MBTA's motion for summary judgment is affirmed.5

                                     So ordered.

     4 The MBTA also argues that the motion judge erred by
denying its motion to strike certain materials in the summary
judgment record that the plaintiff filed outside of the
parameters of Superior Court Rule 9A. This claim, which could
have been raised in the MBTA's principal brief but was raised
for the first time in its reply brief, is not properly before
us. See Commissioner of Revenue v. Plymouth Home Nat'l Bank,
394 Mass. 66, 67 n.3 (1985); Henderson v. Commissioners of
Barnstable County, 49 Mass. App. Ct. 455, 459 (2000). Even if
it were, we would hold that the motion judge's decision to
consider these materials was well within her broad discretion.
See Teamsters Local Union No. 404 v. Secretary of Admin. & Fin.,
434 Mass. 651, 660–661 (2001); Malden Police Patrolman's Ass'n
v. Malden, 92 Mass. App. Ct. 53, 56 (2017).

     5   The plaintiff's request for double costs is denied.