Agrawal v. The Potomac Sch.
| Decision Date | 15 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 21-2460 (RDM) |
| Parties | ANJULA AGRAWAL, as next friend of A.N., her minor child, Plaintiff, v. THE POTOMAC SCHOOL, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Plaintiff Anjula Agrawal, as mother and next friend of her minor daughter, A.N., asserts claims against Defendant the Potomac School (“Potomac”) for negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Dkt. 1. Potomac moves to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim. Dkt. 13 at 6. For the reasons explained below, the Court will DENY Potomac's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and will GRANT its motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
For purposes of resolving the pending motion to dismiss, the Court accepts the following factual allegations as true. See Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984).
Agrawal a resident of the District of Columbia, brings this suit as mother and next friend of her minor daughter, A.N. Dkt. 1 at 2 (Compl. ¶¶ 1-3). A.N. attended Georgetown Day School (“GDS”), a private K-12 school in Washington, D.C., from 2015, when she was in the sixth grade, until she graduated in 2021. Id. at 4 (Compl. ¶ 11). In or around January 2020, A.N. began receiving “solicitous . . . messages” via Snapchat-a private messaging app-from “John,” a student at the Potomac School, a private K-12 school in McLean, Virginia.[1] Id. (Compl. ¶¶ 12-13). Knowing that “John had a girlfriend,” A.N. repeatedly rebuffed his advances. Id. (Compl. ¶ 13). When John continued to contact her, A.N. forwarded one of the messages to John's girlfriend. Id. (Compl. ¶ 14). In retaliation for exposing John's activities to his girlfriend, two of John's friends, “Noah” and “Eric”-referred to in the complaint as the “Potomac Boys”-began “a yearlong social media and texting campaign aimed at sexually harassing, cyberbullying, and humiliating A.N.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 15).
The complaint describes two instances of harassment that occurred in February 2020. First, on February 13, 2020, Noah sent messages to A.N. that included “sexually suggestive and harassing questions about her body.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 17). Second, on an unspecified date, Eric sent a message to A.N. containing “a suggestive video.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 18). A.N. reported these communications to Amy Killy, a counselor at GDS. Id. (Compl. ¶ 19). Later, Killy informed A.N. that she had “reported the sexual harassment and cyberbullying to a counselor at the Potomac School, who informed [her] that the students in question would be ‘spoken to.'” Id. (Compl. ¶ 20). Killy also instructed A.N. to “report any subsequent issues to her directly.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 21).
The Potomac Boys “continued harassing and cyberbullying A.N. for the remainder of the [2019-20] school year . . . during school hours and while on Potomac [School] property.” Id. at 5 (Compl. ¶ 22). Around that same time, Noah sent a message to A.N. in which he “beg[ed] her to email the Potomac School director of student life to tell them that Noah's harassment was in fact a ‘joke.'” Id. (Compl. ¶ 23). When A.N. “refused this request,” the Potomac Boys' “harassment intensified.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 24). During the summer of 2020, the Potomac Boys “comment[ed] on A.N.'s social media pages that she was a crybaby and a snitch for informing school officials of their cyberbullying and harassment.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 25). A.N. reported those comments to Killy, who again “reported the conduct to the Potomac School.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 26).
Despite Killy's reports to Potomac, the Potomac Boys continued to harass A.N. during the following school year (2020-21). Id. (Compl. ¶ 27). The complaint recounts three incidents in May 2021 in which the Potomac Boys again taunted A.N. on social media for her “reports of their cyberbullying and harassment”; made “harassing statements” about A.N. in videos posted on social media; and posted a photo on Snapchat with a caption that “suggest[ed] that [Noah] and his friends had or planned to engage in sexual relations with A.N.” Id. (Compl. ¶¶ 28-30). A.N. reported these incidents to Killy. Id. (Compl. ¶ 31). In July 2021, A.N. sought and obtained temporary anti-stalking orders against the Potomac Boys from the D.C. Superior Court. Id. at 6 (Compl. ¶ 32).
A.N. graduated from GDS in 2021 and is now enrolled in college. Id. (Compl. ¶ 34). She alleges that she “has sought mental health treatment in relation to injuries she has sustained due to the Potomac Boys' harassment and cyberbullying.” Id. (Compl. ¶ 33). She also “fears for her safety and wellbeing” because she now attends the same university as one of the Potomac Boys. Id. (Compl. ¶ 34).
Agrawal filed this suit on September 20, 2021. Id. at 24. She initially named as defendants Potomac and the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington (“AISGW”), a non-profit association of private schools in the Washington, D.C. region that “controls the policies, procedures[,] and protocols of its 78 member schools,” including Potomac. Id. at 2-3 (Compl. ¶¶ 3-5). Agrawal claimed that Potomac violated Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688 (Count I), and that both Defendants committed (1) negligent supervision and hiring/retention (Counts II and III); (2) negligence (Counts IV and V); (3) intentional infliction of emotional distress (Counts VI and VII); and (4) negligent infliction of emotional distress (Counts VIII and IX).[2] See id. at 6-24 (Compl. ¶¶ 36-112). On October 28, 2021, Agrawal stipulated to dismissal of her claims against AISGW, Dkt. 12, leaving only the claims against Potomac-Counts I, II, IV, VI, and VIII-intact.
On November 19, 2021, Potomac moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subjectmatter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) and for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). Dkt. 13 at 1. On December 3, 2021, Agrawal filed a brief in opposition to Potomac's motion to dismiss, in which she “withdr[e]w [her] claim for Negligent Supervision and Hiring/Retention (Count II) only, as it is subsumed elsewhere in [her] Negligence claims.” Dkt. 14 at 7. Potomac filed its reply brief on December 10, 2021. Dkt. 15. On December 17, 2021, Agrawal voluntarily dismissed her Title IX claim (Count I) against Potomac. Dkt. 17.
That brings the Court to where things now stand. Agrawal's claims for negligence (Count IV), intentional infliction of emotional distress (Count VI), and negligent infliction of emotional distress (Count VIII) remain pending against Potomac, and Potomac's motion to dismiss, which also remains pending, is ripe for review.
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) challenges the Court's subject-matter jurisdiction. A Rule 12(b)(1) motion “may take one of two forms.” Hale v. United States, No. 13-1390, 2015 WL 7760161, at *3 (D.D.C. Dec. 2, 2015). First, it “may raise a ‘facial' challenge to the Court's jurisdiction.” Id. A facial challenge asks whether the complaint alleges facts sufficient to establish the Court's jurisdiction. McCabe v. Barr, 490 F.Supp.3d 198, 210 (D.D.C. 2020); see also Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992). In this posture, the Court must accept the factual allegations of the complaint as true. Erby v. United States, 424 F.Supp.2d 180, 182 (D.D.C. 2006) (collecting cases). “Alternatively, a Rule 12(b)(1) motion may pose a ‘factual' challenge to the Court's jurisdiction.” Hale, 2015 WL 7760161, at *3 (citing Erby, 424 F.Supp.2d at 182-83). When a motion to dismiss is framed in this manner, the Court “may not deny the motion . . . merely by assuming the truth of the facts alleged by the plaintiff and disputed by the defendant” but “must go beyond the pleadings and resolve any disputed issues of fact the resolution of which is necessary to a ruling upon the motion to dismiss.” Phoenix Consulting Inc. v. Republic of Angola, 216 F.3d 36, 40 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (collecting cases).
A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Rule 12(b)(6), in contrast, “tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint.” Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002). In evaluating a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the Court “must first ‘tak[e] note of the elements a plaintiff must plead to state [the] claim to relief,' and then determine whether the plaintiff has pleaded those elements with adequate factual support to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Blue v. District of Columbia, 811 F.3d 14, 20 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (alterations in original) (citations omitted) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 675, 678 (2009)).
The complaint, however, need not include “detailed factual allegations” to withstand a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). A plaintiff may survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion even if “recovery is . . . unlikely,” so long as the facts alleged in the complaint are “enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id. at 555-56 (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Although Potomac moves to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim, it fails to advance any argument relating to the Court's jurisdiction. Nevertheless, because the Court “ha[s] ‘an independent obligation to determine whether subjectmatter jurisdiction exists,' even when jurisdictional defects are not specifically identified by the parties,” Flaherty v. Ross, 373 F.Supp.3d 97 103 (D.D.C. 2019) (quoting Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006)), and because Agrawal voluntarily dismissed the...
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