Rodriguez v. Unified Sch. Dist. No. 500
| Decision Date | 12 June 2015 |
| Docket Number | 107,174. |
| Citation | 351 P.3d 1243,302 Kan. 134 |
| Parties | Jesus RODRIGUEZ, by and through His Next Friend and Natural Mother, Graciela RODRIGUEZ, Appellant, v. UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 500, et al., Defendants, and Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, Appellee. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Stephen R. McAllister, of counsel, of Thompson Ramsdell Qualseth & Warner, P.A., of Lawrence, argued the cause, Henri J. Watson and Russell S. Dameron, of Watson & Dameron, LLP, of Kansas City, Missouri, and were on the briefs for appellant.
Robert J. Hoffman, of Bryan Cave LLP, of Kansas City, Missouri, argued the cause, and Lauren A. Horsman, of the same firm, was with him on the briefs for appellee.
This appeal addresses whether a Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company policy issued to the Kansas State High School Activities Association provided coverage for catastrophic personal injury suffered by 10th grader Jesus Rodriguez.
We hold that coverage exists. We therefore reverse contrary rulings by the district court judge and a panel of our Court of Appeals, and we remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.
The accident that injured Rodriguez occurred on August 29, 2006, while he was traveling to his first match of the Sumner Academy soccer season. Rodriguez was riding in the bed of a pickup truck driven by fellow student and teammate Mike Hitze when the pickup collided with another car. Rodriguez was thrown from the pickup and sustained the injury that now requires him to have round-the-clock care.
Rodriguez' mother, Graciela, initially filed this lawsuit on his behalf against the school district, Hitze, and the driver of the car that had collided with Hitze's truck.
Rodriguez filed a claim, and Mutual of Omaha denied it, reasoning that the travel during which Rodriguez was injured did not qualify as covered under the policy. According to Mutual of Omaha, the school had indicated no request for reimbursement for the travel had been made; moreover, the travel was not “subject to reimbursement” because the school also had indicated that it had “been unable to locate any requests for reimbursement, or payment of, expenses incurred by a parent or student using a private vehicle to transport students to a sporting event.” Mutual of Omaha asserted that all expenditures of the school system must be authorized by law, and there was no statutory authorization for a school to pay a private individual for use of a private car to transport a student in Rodriguez' circumstances.
After the denial of coverage, Mutual of Omaha was added as a defendant in this lawsuit. A bench trial limited to the insurance coverage issue followed.
Rodriguez' mother testified that Rodriguez' father had signed a permission form covering travel options for members of the soccer team. The form granted permission for Rodriguez to, among other things, “[r]ide with other players from school to practice, home meets, or to meet the bus for away meets” and to “[r]ide to team events with other players.”
Israel Ocanas, one of the other team members who rode with Hitze and Rodriguez on the day of the accident, testified that he was unaware whether the school had provided a bus for team members. He said that no one had directed him to travel by bus. According to Ocanas, it was “normal ... to just catch a ride with whoever was heading that way in a car.” Ocanas testified that, when the campus officer let Hitze's pickup exit the school parking lot, Rodriguez was sitting in the pickup bed. The group then waited across from the school for other team members to arrive. Eventually a total of three, including Rodriguez, rode in the bed of the pickup.
Much of the testimony at trial focused on the school district's policies and administrative guidelines. The administrative guidelines mirror the numbering system of the policies but are amended with an “-A.” As one of the school district's administrators would testify, the guidelines are not
The clerk for the Board of Education, Susan Westfahl, testified about a school district administrative guideline, 3.5.5.0.0–A, which was titled “Pupil Transportation.” The guideline included the following passage:
No copy of the guideline in the record on appeal includes a subsection covering extracurricular activities such as soccer matches. Westfahl also testified that, in the 10 years she had worked for the Board, she could not recall an instance in which the Board had approved reimbursement for a student who had transported another student to a school activity.
Testimony of Tom Petz, executive director of human resource services for the school district, was submitted during the bench trial by way of transcribed deposition and exhibits. The exhibits to Petz' deposition included a school district policy, 3.5.5.0.0, titled “Pupil Transportation.” It stated in part:
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In re Adoption T.M.M.H.
...would not consider documents appended to brief but never formally introduced as evidence or added to record); Rodriguez v. U.S.D. No. 500 , 302 Kan. 134, 144, 351 P.3d 1243 (2015) (court would not rely on appendix to brief not part of the record below). We therefore do not consider the e-ma......
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...to Ballard's brief—and is not part of the record on appeal—we cannot rely on it on to support his claims. See Rodriguez v. U.S.D. No. 500 , 302 Kan. 134, 145, 351 P.3d 1243 (2015) ; see also Supreme Court Rule 6.02(b) (2019 Kan. S. Ct. R. 34). With no evidence to support the truth of the re......
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State v. Mason
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