Dismissal Of Allegation That School District Failed To Address Student Complaints Reversed

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the dismissal of a case brought by the New York Attorney General against a school district 

On this appeal, we address the issue of what a state bringing suit in federal court must show to establish its standing in parens patriae. The State of New York, through its Attorney General, sued the Niagara-Wheatfield Central School District for its officials’ alleged failure to address repeated complaints of student-on-student sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender-based violence and bullying. The United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Sinatra, Jr., Judge) dismissed this case on the pleadings, concluding that the state lacked parens patriae standing to bring the suit. The court reasoned that because the incidents alleged were factually distinct from one another, the State of New York had not shown that the School District’s failure to act in those instances constituted a broader “policy or practice” of discriminating against student victims of gender-based violence and harassment. Absent such a policy or practice, the court concluded, the State of New York could not, as a matter of law, make the showing required for parens patriae standing that the School District’s conduct affected a “substantial segment” of its population.

We conclude that showing an injurious policy or practice enforced against a target population is not necessary to satisfy the substantial-segment prong of the parens patriae standard. We further conclude that the State of New York has met its burden of pleading parens patriae standing at this stage of the litigation, and therefore

REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Judge Cabranes concurs dubitante in a separate opinion.

The opinion describes a number of incidents and the official response (or lack thereof).

At an “open house,” the High School’s Assistant Principal, Jeff White, approached T.G.’s family and stated, in front of other students and parents, that in White’s view, “TG had faked the panic attack for attention.” Id. ¶ 24. T.G., a school cheerleader, began to absent herself from cheerleading practice. T.G.’s cheerleading coach refused to excuse her absences, allegedly stating that “girls get assaulted all the time.” Id. ¶ 25.

The accused student

On May 23, 2019, E.D. pleaded guilty to the assault on T.G., which was charged as rape in the third degree. T.G.’s mother informed the school about the conviction, but was told by Principal Mann that, on the advice of counsel, E.D. would be permitted to attend prom, graduation, and all other end-of-year school functions.

Another student was bullied because of her clothing

As a High School student, C.C. began to wear more stereotypically feminine clothing in an attempt to avoid further harassment. However, C.C.’s peers then called her “fat,” “ugly,” a “slut,” and in one case told her to kill herself. Id. ¶¶ 45–46. Throughout the ninth grade, C.C. and her family repeatedly informed Dr. Peters of this harassment, but neither he nor any administrator in the School District took action to prevent its further occurrence.

Impact

As a result of her harassment and bullying, unmitigated by any protective action by the School District, C.C. dropped out of the High School. At the time the Complaint was filed in federal district court in August 2021, C.C. had not received a high school diploma.

A third student

A.S., a female student, attended the High School in the spring of 2020. Around that time, a male football player at the High School created a TikTok video displaying other football players’ messages mocking A.S. The video included comments by one boy that A.S.’s sweatpants made it look like she had male genitalia, and by another boy that he would not have sex with A.S. The video was shared among the school’s student body.

Shortly thereafter, female friends of the football players began harassing A.S. A school pep rally turned into a violent physical assault of A.S. Members of the sophomore class engaged in derogatory chanting about A.S. and five sophomore girls displayed a poster about A.S. reading “We don’t want you.” Am. Compl. ¶ 54. The five girls then assaulted A.S., hitting her in the head eleven times. A.S.’s mother went to the principal’s office and described the incident to Acting Principal Jeff White. The High School did not take any action. Instead, White suggested to A.S.’s mother that A.S. should not attend the following day’s school dance.

The student then transferred to a private school.

The fourth matter involved an elementary school  student

L.W., a female student, attended second grade at Errick Road Elementary School (the “Elementary School”) in 2017. That year, L.W. was sexually assaulted in her housing complex by a neighbor, a fifth grader at the Elementary School. L.W.’s mother reported the sexual assault to local law enforcement officials, Elementary School principal Nora O’Bryan, and School District Superintendent Daniel Ljiljanich. A court placed the assailant on probation and ordered the assailant’s family to move out of L.W.’s housing complex. However, the School District took no action against the assailant, or to shield L.W. from the assailant at school. Instead, Superintendent Ljiljanich informed L.W.’s mother that, if she wished L.W. to be safe from her assailant, she would have to move to another area so L.W. could attend a different school.

General allegations

The OAG further alleges in its Complaint that the School District was notified of “at least thirty incidents of sexual assault, harassment, or genderbased bullying in the last few years.” Am. Compl. ¶ 69; see also id. ¶ 5 (similar). The School District has taken no action in response to any of them, be it by “creat[ing] a single written safety plan,” “document[ing] any follow-up to ensure the safety of any of these students,” taking other “basic steps to prevent or respond to future sexual assaults,” or “tak[ing] any steps to develop preventative policies or reform its practices.” Id. ¶¶ 69–70, 72; see also id. ¶¶ 4–5 (similar). Moreover, the School District ignored repeated offers by the Rape Crisis Program of the Young Women’s Christian Association for the Niagara Frontier (“YWCA”) provide educational programming on domestic and dating violence— programming the organization provides to every other school district in Niagara County. In sum, according to the allegations, the School District refused to act in the face of known and frequent complaints of sexual assault, harassment, or gender-based bullying—whether through general policies aimed at prevention, individually tailored remedial actions, or any other means.

The District Court erred

Under the law of this Circuit, then, a state seeking to bring suit in parens patriae need not plead, nor later prove, a policy or practice, or any repeat conduct routinely aimed at a single target population. A single challenged act by the defendant may satisfy the substantial-segment prong, so long as that action meets Snapp’s requirements of showing sufficient “injury to an identifiable group of individual[s]” and “indirect effects of the injury” beyond that group.

…We therefore conclude that the OAG has pleaded sufficient facts to support the inference that a substantial segment of the state’s population has been affected by the School District’s challenged conduct. Because the parties agree that the OAG has made the other two showings required for parens patriae standing—pleading a quasi-sovereign interest and an inability by individual plaintiffs to obtain complete relief, see Griepp, 991 F.3d at 131—we reverse the district court’s judgment dismissing this case for lack of parens patriae standing.

Circuit Judge Cabranes

This I-know-it-when-I-see-it approach is an invitation to confusion, and it should be no surprise that it has indeed sown some confusion among the Courts…

I agree with the experienced Magistrate Judge (Leslie G. Foschio, Magistrate Judge) and District Judge (John L. Sinatra, Judge) that New York lacks parens patriae standing. But I cannot be confident in this conclusion because the standard is uncertain. So I concur dubitante, because I believe that our confused parens patriae case law warrants clarification or correction by the Supreme Court.

(Mike Frisch)