Blondin v. Milton Town Sch. Dist.
| Decision Date | 15 January 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 2020-031,2020-031 |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
| Parties | Zachariah Blondin v. Milton Town School District et al. |
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions by email at: JUD.Reporter@vermont.gov or by mail at: Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801, of any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.
On Appeal from Superior Court, Chittenden Unit, Civil Division
Jerome F. O'Neill, Celeste E. Laramie, and Chase S. Whiting of Gravel & Shea PC, Burlington, for Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross-Appellant.
Pietro J. Lynn, Sean M. Toohey, and Adrienne Shea of Lynn, Lynn, Blackman & Manitsky, P.C., Burlington, for Defendant-Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
PRESENT: Reiber, C.J., Robinson, Eaton, Carroll and Cohen, JJ.
¶ 1. COHEN, J. Defendant Milton Town School District and plaintiff, a high-school football player who sued the District after being assaulted by team members during an off-campus team dinner at the residence of one of the players, both appeal various trial court rulings and the jury's verdict in favor of plaintiff following a five-day jury trial. We affirm.
¶ 2. Plaintiff sued the District1 in April 2017, claiming negligent supervision and a violation of the Vermont Public Accommodations Act (VPAA) in connection with his assault at the hands of fellow football team members at an on off-campus dinner in the fall of 2012. In his complaint, plaintiff alleged the following facts. He was a freshman football player at Milton HighSchool in the fall of 2012. At that time, the District was aware that members of the football team had engaged in past acts of harassment, including sexual assaults and hazing, against underclassmen team members.2 In October 2012, nine or ten members of the team, including plaintiff, attended a team dinner at one of the player's parents' home. At some point that evening, plaintiff was dragged down to the basement and thrown onto a couch, where one player held plaintiff down while another player forcibly inserted a pool cue into plaintiff's rectum.
¶ 3. In August 2013, the Milton High School principal spoke to plaintiff and another football player after learning that some incoming freshman did not want to play football because they had heard rumors of team members using broomsticks to initiate new team members. When the principal told plaintiff that she would shut down the football program if the rumors proved to be true, plaintiff denied the rumors because he feared retaliation from other students for causing the football program to be shut down. The principal then directed plaintiff to speak to the incoming freshman and tell him he had lied about the use of broomsticks during the initiation of new team members. When the principal informed the district superintendent about the rumors, the superintendent declined to do anything further.
¶ 4. In April 2014, the Department for Children and Families (DCF) opened an investigation into allegations concerning the Milton High School football team. After a later investigation by the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations, the Chittenden County State's Attorney filed criminal charges against five Milton High School football players, including plaintiff's attackers, all of whom pled guilty to criminal offenses related to harassment, hazing, and assault.3
¶ 5. Based on these and other alleged facts, plaintiff claimed that the District: (1) failed to prevent and remediate the harassment of its students, including plaintiff, by members of the football team, in violation of the VPAA; and (2) negligently breached its duty to supervise the Milton High School football team, resulting in plaintiff's injuries. The District denied these claims and raised several affirmative defenses, including failure to exhaust administrative remedies and comparative negligence.
¶ 6. In March 2019, following discovery, the District moved for summary judgment, which the trial court denied in a July 2019 order. Regarding plaintiff's VPAA claim, the court rejected the District's contention that plaintiff could not move forward to trial on the claim because he had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, as required by the Act. Examining the elements of the Act and its exceptions to the exhaustion requirement, the court concluded that a jury could find, based on the alleged facts, that the District failed to act upon a complaint of harassment, that a complaint would have been futile, and/or that requiring exhaustion would have subjected plaintiff to substantial and immediate harassment. See 16 V.S.A. § 570f(b)(1)-(5) (). Regarding plaintiff's negligent supervision claim, the court concluded that a jury could find that the District breached its duty to protect plaintiff from an unreasonable risk of foreseeable injury because a question of fact remained as to when the District had notice of prior acts of harassment and assault by football team members against other team members.
¶ 7. The jury trial was held in November 2019. After plaintiff rested his case, the District moved for judgment as a matter of law on both of plaintiff's claims. See V.R.C.P. 50 (). With respect to plaintiff's VPAA claim, the District argued that plaintiff: (1) had failed to show that he was not required to exhaust his administrative remedies, and (2) had presented no evidence that his assault was motivated by his actual or perceived membership in a protected category of persons. As to plaintiff's negligent supervision claim, the District asserted that it did not have a duty to protectplaintiff at the off-campus gathering from student-assailants who had not been specifically identified as posing any risk of harm to plaintiff or anyone else. The trial court denied the motion, concluding that there were material questions of fact on both issues for the jury to decide.
¶ 8. At the close of all evidence, plaintiff moved for judgment as a matter of law on both his claims, as well as on his opposition to the District's comparative-negligence defense. The trial court denied the motion. The jury returned a verdict awarding plaintiff $280,000 after indicating on the verdict form that sixty percent of the overall negligence in the case was attributable to the District and the remaining forty percent was attributable to plaintiff. The jury found in favor of the District on plaintiff's VPAA claim.
¶ 9. The parties disagreed over the meaning of the jury's damages award. Plaintiff argued that he was entitled to the entire $280,000 award based on the assumption the jury made the comparative-negligence calculation in arriving at that figure. The district, on the other hand, argued that the $280,000 award had to be reduced by forty percent based on the assumption the jury had not made the comparative-negligence calculation in arriving at that figure. The court ruled in favor of plaintiff and awarded plaintiff a judgment of $280,000.4
¶ 10. Following the trial court's entry of judgment, plaintiff filed: (1) a motion for a new trial on damages, or in the alternative an additur, arguing that the court erred in allowing the jury to consider his alleged comparative negligence and in not instructing the jury on punitive damages, as he had requested; and (2) a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law, or in the alternative a new trial, arguing that he was entitled to a judgment on the VPAA claim and that the court erred in instructing the jury on that claim.
¶ 11. The trial court ruled that punitive damages were not available against the municipally funded school district pursuant to this Court's decision in In re Town Highway No. 20,2012 VT 17, ¶¶ 69-72, 191 Vt. 231, 45 A.3d 54; however, the court concluded that it had erred in allowing the jury to consider plaintiff's alleged comparative negligence, given the evidence presented at trial. Accordingly, the court granted plaintiff a new trial unless the District accepted an additur of $186,666, representing a forty percent increase in the judgment after setting aside the comparative-negligence deduction, for a total judgment of $466,666. The District accepted the additur conditioned on the outcome of an appeal, see V.R.C.P. 59(a), and both parties then appealed the judgment.
¶ 12. On appeal, the District argues that, as a matter of law, it did not owe plaintiff a duty to protect him at an unsponsored off-campus dinner, unattended by school employees, from other team members who had not been previously identified as posing a risk of harm to him or others. The District also argues that the trial court erred in determining that the jury's award of damages included the comparative-negligence calculation and in later setting aside the jury's finding of comparative negligence. In his cross-appeal, in addition to contesting the District's claims of error, plaintiff argues that the trial court erred in admitting unduly prejudicial character evidence, in failing to grant him judgment as a matter of law on his VPAA claim and then incorrectly instructing the jury on that claim, and in refusing to instruct the jury on punitive damages. For the reasons explained below, we affirm the judgment.
¶ 13. As indicated, the District first argues that it did not have a duty to protect plaintiff at an off-campus gathering from other students who had never been identified as posing a risk of harm to plaintiff or other football team members. In making this argument, the District purports to appeal from the trial court's denial of both its pretrial motion for summary judgment and its motion for judgment as a matter of law...
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