Doe by and through Doe v. Petaluma City School Dist.

• Decision Date: 22 July 1996
• Docket Number: No. C 93-00123 CW.,C 93-00123 CW.
• Citation: 949 F.Supp. 1415
• Parties: Jane DOE, a Minor, By and Through her Guardian ad Litem, John DOE, Plaintiff, v. PETALUMA CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, and Petaluma Joint Union High School District, Richard Homrighouse, and Roes 1 through 50, Inclusive, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

949 F.Supp. 1415

Jane DOE, a Minor, By and Through her Guardian ad Litem, John DOE, Plaintiff, v. PETALUMA CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, and Petaluma Joint Union High School District, Richard Homrighouse, and Roes 1 through 50, Inclusive, Defendants.

No. C 93-00123 CW.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

July 22, 1996.

Rose B. Fua, Equal Rights Advocates, San Francisco, CA, John J. Steele, Fenwick & West LLP, Palo Alto, CA, Julie Goldscheid, Yolanda S. Wu, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, New York City, for Jane Doe.

MaryClare Lawrence, Conner Slabach Lawrence & Rodney, Santa Rosa, CA, for John Does.

Scott N. Kivel, Larry Frierson, Liebert Cassidy & Frierson, San Francisco, CA, Robert J. Henry, School And College Legal Svcs., Sonoma Cty. Office of Educ., Santa Rosa, CA, for Petaluma City School District, Petaluma Joint Union High School District, Dick Cleclak, Richard Homrighouse, Kenilworth Junior High School.

Susan L. Kamlet, U.S. Attorney's Office, Oakland, CA, Juliette N. Kayyem, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Washington, DC, for the U.S.

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

WILKEN, District Judge.

Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration was heard by this Court on April 26, 1996. Having considered the papers filed by the parties and oral argument on the motion, and good cause appearing, the Court hereby GRANTS the motion as follows.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff filed this action on January 11, 1993 alleging that Defendants failed to stop sexual harassment inflicted on her by her peers while she was a student at Kenilworth Junior High School. On August 30, 1993, on Defendants' motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint, this Court, the Honorable Eugene F. Lynch presiding, held that Title IX, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq., prohibits hostile environment sexual harassment, and that money damages are available in a private action to enforce Title IX upon proof of "intentional discrimination on the basis of sex by an employee of the educational institution." Doe v. Petaluma City Sch. Dist., 830 F.Supp. 1560, 1571 (N.D.Cal.1993)¹ ("Petaluma I").

The Court specified that, in proving intentional discrimination, "it is not enough that the institution knew or should have known of the hostile environment and failed to take appropriate action to end it," because that standard, applicable to Title VII claims for sexual harassment in the workplace, was not "the equivalent of `discriminatory animus,'" but rather was "in essence a negligence standard." Id. The Court explained what Plaintiff would be required to prove under its ruling as follows:

[T]he school district must be found to have intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff student on the basis of sex. The school's failure to take appropriate action, as alleged in plaintiff's complaint, could be circumstantial evidence of intent to discriminate. Thus a plaintiff student could proceed against a school district on the theory that its inaction (or insufficient action) in the face of complaints of student-to-student sexual harassment was a result of an actual intent to discriminate against the student on the basis of sex.

Id. at 1576.

On March 11, 1996, the Court granted Plaintiff leave to move for reconsideration of the above order pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7-9(a) in light of the developing case authority in this rapidly changing area of the law.

DISCUSSION

1. Standard for Reconsideration

Reconsideration should be granted only where there has been an intervening change of law or fact, new evidence or authority not previously available in the exercise of reasonable diligence has been discovered, or reconsideration is necessary to correct a clear error of law or a manifest injustice. School Dist. No. 1J, Multnomah County v. ACandS, Inc., 5 F.3d 1255, 1263 (9th Cir.1993) cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1236, 114 S.Ct. 2742, 129 L.Ed.2d 861 (1994); Civil L.R. 7-9(b). As this Court noted in its order of March 11, 1996 granting leave to move for reconsideration, several new cases on school district liability under Title IX for student-on-student harassment have been decided since this Court's order of August 30, 1993. In addition, there is new authority in related areas of discrimination law, including Title VII law, which are informative here. As the Ninth Circuit explicitly recognized in 1991, "sexual harassment is a rapidly expanding area of the law." Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir.1991). This remains as true today as it was five years ago.

Defendants argue that this Court should refrain from reconsidering its prior decision under the doctrine of the law of the case. However, as Defendants recognize, "law of the case" refers only to the practice of courts not to reopen a decided issue except for a cogent reason, and does not circumscribe a court's authority to reconsider an interlocutory ruling when good cause exists to do so. Messinger v. Anderson, 225 U.S. 436, 444, 32 S.Ct. 739, 740, 56 L.Ed. 1152 (1912). Good cause exists here to reexamine the issues raised in this case.

2. Intentional Discrimination

At issue in this motion is the standard of liability for damages under Title IX applicable to a federally funded school district when a sexually harassing hostile environment in a school allegedly harms a student. The availability of the remedy of money damages for violation of Title IX is based on the Supreme Court's decision in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U.S. 60, 112 S.Ct. 1028, 117 L.Ed.2d 208 (1992). The issue therefore turns on what the Supreme Court meant when it held that monetary damages could be awarded under Title IX against a recipient school district, consistent with the limitations on Spending Clause statute remedies, in cases of "intentional discrimination." Id. at 74-75, 112 S.Ct. at 1037.

In Franklin, the alleged hostile environment arose from the sexual harassment of a student by her teacher. The plaintiff sued the school district for damages under Title IX, claiming that the school district intentionally discriminated against her. The complaint alleged that a teacher engaged in ongoing sexual harassment and abuse, and that other teachers and administrators, although they were aware of the harassment, took no action to halt it. The district court dismissed the complaint on the grounds that Title IX does not authorize damages, and the appellate court affirmed.

The Supreme Court reversed, relying on the general presumption that where legal rights are violated and a federal statute provides for a general right to sue for the violation, the federal courts may use any available remedy to right the wrong. Franklin, 503 U.S. at 66, 112 S.Ct. at 1032-33. The defendant argued that this presumption should not apply because Title IX was enacted pursuant to Congress' Spending Clause power. The Court rejected this argument, noting that while in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 28-29, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 1545-46, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981), the Court had limited remedies for unintentional violations of statutes promulgated under the Spending Clause statutes, this principle did not apply to intentional violations. Id. at 74, 112 S.Ct. at 1037. The Court explained that the reason not to permit monetary damages for an unintentional violation is that the recipient of federal funds lacks notice that it will be liable for a monetary award. Id. In contrast, however,

This notice problem does not arise in a case such as this, in which intentional discrimination is alleged. Unquestionably, Title IX placed on the Gwinnett County Schools the duty not to discriminate on the basis of sex, and "when a supervisor sexually harasses a subordinate because of the subordinate's sex, that supervisor `discriminate[s]' on the basis of sex." Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 64 [106 S.Ct. 2399, 2404, 91 L.Ed.2d 49] (1986). We believe the same rule should apply when a teacher sexually harasses and abuses a student.

Id. at 74-75, 112 S.Ct. at 1037. Therefore, the Court held, a damages remedy was available against the school district.

The Franklin Court did not define or analyze "intentional discrimination." It was clear enough that a claim of "intentional discrimination" was at issue there, in that the plaintiff specifically alleged "intentional discrimination" and the lower courts characterized the plaintiff's claim as one of "intentional discrimination."

Thus, it is not clear how the Court meant the "intentional discrimination" standard it set in Franklin to relate to the standard for liability for hostile work environment sexual harassment under Title VII. The Court gave conflicting signals on this point. On one hand, the Franklin Court expressly refused to consider whether the standards and remedies of Title VII should be directly applied to Title IX cases. 503 U.S. at 65, n. 4, 112 S.Ct. at 1032 n. 4. On the other hand, in characterizing the plaintiff's claim as one for "intentional discrimination," the Court cited without explanation to Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986), a hostile environment case arising under Title VII. 503 U.S. at 75, 112 S.Ct. at 1037-38.

To further complicate matters, the Meritor Court had held that employers are not "always automatically liable for sexual harassment by their supervisors" and instructed the lower courts to look to agency principles for guidance in formulating a rule on employer liability. 477 U.S. at 72, 106 S.Ct. at 2407-08. Yet the Franklin Court, while relying on Meritor, made no mention of agency principles and gave no explanation of the connection between the act of the teacher in sexually harassing a student, which it characterized as intentional discrimination, and the liability of the school district for intentional discrimination.

The Franklin Court must have been aware that the appellate courts had fashioned a test for Title VII employer liability...