Three girls (presumably Marquay and two others), were
students at Mascoma High School. They were sexually abused by several
teachers, including Eno. They sued the school district for negligence
for failure to protect them from an employee.
The Federal Trial Court certified several questions to the
New Hampshire Supreme Court.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court was asked whether a State
law requiring persons who suspect a child is being abused shall report
that abuse to the police, created a private right of action for the abused
children to sue those who violated the State law.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court found that the Statute
had no express of implied legislative intent to establish civil liability.
The use of a Statute to establish a standard of care is
limited to situations where a common law action exists. In this case,
the actions wouldn't be enough to qualify as negligence under the
common law, so even though there is now a criminal Statute, it doesn't
create a new standard of care.
A second question asked whether or not all school district
employees have a common law duty to protect students from abusive
employees.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court said that some employees
owe a duty to the students and others do not.
Generally, there is no duty to care (nonfeasance).
However, there can be a duty if a special relationship exists. In this
case, it can be argued that there is a custodian – person in custody
special relationship between the teachers and students.
See Restatement of Torts §314A.
Of course, the scope of duty is limited to what is
reasonable foreseeable.
The duty to care falls only upon those school employees
who had supervisory responsibility over students and thus have stepped
into the role of parental proxy.
Just receiving a paycheck from the school district
doesn't shoulder you with a duty to care.
Scope of duty is limited only to those times when the
school employee is acting as a parental proxy.
Compare this case to Wakulich v. Mraz (255 Ill.Dec.
907 (2001)). In both cases, the Court had a Statute that basically said
no liability exists, but they looked past that Statute and found a
common-law basis to establish that there was a duty to care.
