In Regents of University of California v. Superior Court (Rosen), published March 22, 2018, the California Supreme Court reversed the lower appellate court's decision that UCLA owed no duty to a student to warn her of or protect her from another student's attack. The school was aware that the student who ultimately attacked the plaintiff was experiencing auditory hallucinations and was showing symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, including shoving one student. The school attempted to provide the assailant with mental health care, and evicted him from student housing after he shoved the other student. While in a school chemistry lab doing schoolwork, the assailant unexpectedly stabbed the plaintiff with a kitchen knife.
The Supreme Court concluded that because of the relationship between colleges and their students--particularly the vulnerability of students to attacks from fellow students, and the schools' superior knowledge of threats--public colleges and universities are in a special relationship with their students, which imposes a duty of care to take reasonable steps to protect students when it becomes aware of a foreseeable threat to their safety--including foreseeable violence--during curricular activities. The various policy considerations of duty analysis support the existence of that duty. Foreseeability and reasonable care will vary under the circumstances of each case. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the court of appeal to decide whether triable issues of material fact remain on the questions of breach of duty and immunity. In a concurring opinion, Justice Corrigan opined that because the attack occurred in a classroom, there was no need to consider whether colleges owed a duty to students involved in curricular activities outside the classroom.
Comments