In E.I. v. El Segundo Unified School District, published June 13, 2025, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 8 affirmed a jury verdict for the plaintiff. The plaintiff who was a middle-school student who was subjected to extensive online and in-person bullying by two classmates. The plaintiff, her parents, and schoolmates repeatedly reported the bullying to school personnel. The personnel failed to respond as directed in the District's Comprehensive Safety Plan and the school's own safety plan. The safety plans were modeled on the Education Code's provisions addressing school safety. At one point, the district called the police when one of the bullies created a "petition to end [plaintiff's] life and multiple students signed it; but the district did not notify the plaintiff or her parents of the petition, and the parents only learned of it from another student's mother. The plaintiff suffered emotional trauma, including at one point cutting herself to get attention. The plaintiff sued the district for negligence and negligent hiring, retention, supervision and training, both under Education Code section 44807 and Government Code sections 815.2, 815.4, 815.6, 820, and 835. During trial the plaintiff dismissed the negligent supervision cause of action. The jury found the district negligent and that its negligence was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's injuries. It awarded the plaintiff $1 million.
The appellate court rejected the district's multiple arguments for reversal. The appellate court agreed with the district that Education Code sections 48900, 48900.5, 48900.7 and 48911 do not create private causes of action or create a mandatory duty of care owed to plaintiffs with respect to economic damages arising from educational injury. But plaintiff did not base her negligence cause of action on those statutes, but rather on Education Code section 44807, which supports the duty of school authorities to supervise children on school grounds and enforce rules and regulations necessary to their protection; and Government Code section 815.2(a), which makes the district vicariously liable for injuries caused by its employees' negligence. The school employees had a duty to protect the plaintiff from harm caused by other students. Government Code section 820.2's discretionary immunity did not immunize the school employees' decisions in determining how to respond to the complaints of bullying. Section 820.2 immunizes basic policy decisions. The plaintiff did not claim that the district or school were negligent in crafting anti-bullying policies. She claimed that the employees negligently failed to protect her by, among other things, not following the safety policies already in place. Lower-level decisions that merely implement a basic policy already formulated are not immunized by section 820.2. The district complained that the special verdict form set forth the negligent supervision claim that the plaintiff dismissed. But this was harmless error, because the district failed to show that the jury would have awarded the plaintiff less in damages for negligence if the verdict did not include the negligent training and supervision theory.