Donohue v. Copiague Union Free School Dist.

• Decision Date: 14 June 1979
• Citation: 418 N.Y.S.2d 375,47 N.Y.2d 440,391 N.E.2d 1352
• Parties: , 391 N.E.2d 1352, 1 A.L.R.4th 1133 Edward DONOHUE, Appellant, v. COPIAGUE UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 375

418 N.Y.S.2d 375

47 N.Y.2d 440, 391 N.E.2d 1352, 1

A.L.R.4th 1133

Edward DONOHUE, Appellant, v. COPIAGUE UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

June 14, 1979.

Bernard M. Rosen and Sidney R. Siben, Bay Shore, for appellant

Henry A. Weinstein and Charles D. Maurer, Garden City, for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

JASEN, Judge.

This appeal poses the question whether a complaint seeking monetary damages for "educational malpractice" states a cause of action cognizable in the courts.

Appellant entered Copiague Senior High School in September, 1972 and graduated in June, 1976. The thrust of appellant's claim is that notwithstanding his receipt of a certificate of graduation he lacks even the rudimentary ability to comprehend written English on a level sufficient to enable him to complete applications for employment. His complaint attributes this deficiency to the failure of respondent to perform its duties and obligations to educate appellant. To be more specific, appellant alleges in his complaint that respondent through its employees "gave to (appellant) passing grades and/or minimal or failing grades in various subjects; failed to evaluate (appellant's) mental ability and capacity to comprehend the subjects being taught to him at said school; failed to take proper means and precautions that they reasonably should have taken under the circumstances; failed to interview, discuss, evaluate and/or psychologically test (appellant) in order to ascertain his ability to comprehend and understand such matter; failed to provide adequate school facilities, teachers, administrators, psychologists, and other personnel trained to take the necessary steps in testing and evaluation processes insofar as (appellant) is concerned in order to ascertain the learning capacity, intelligence and intellectual absorption on the part of (appellant)".

Based upon these acts of commission and omission, appellant frames two causes of action, the first of which sounds in "educational malpractice" and the second of which alleges the negligent breach of a constitutionally imposed duty to educate. To redress his injury, appellant seeks the sum of $5,000,000. Upon respondent's motion, Special Term dismissed appellant's complaint for failure to state a cause of action. (CPLR 3211, subd. (a), par. 7.) The Appellate Division affirmed, with one Justice dissenting. There should be an affirmance.

The second cause of action need not detain us long. The State Constitution (art. XI, § 1) commands that "(t)he legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated." Even a terse reading of this provision reveals that the Constitution places the obligation of Maintaining and supporting a system of public schools upon the Legislature. To be sure, this general directive was never intended to impose a duty flowing directly from a local school district to individual pupils to ensure that each pupil receives a minimum level of education, the breach of which duty would entitle a pupil to compensatory damages. (See Steitz v. City of Beacon, 295 N.Y. 51, 57, 64 N.E.2d 704, 707; Moch Co. v. Rensselaer Water Co., 247 N.Y. 160, 169, 159 N.E. 896, 899.)

Appellant's first cause of action bears closer scrutiny. It may very well be that even within the strictures of a traditional negligence or malpractice action, a complaint sounding in "educational malpractice" may be formally pleaded. Thus, the imagination need not be overly taxed to envision allegations of a legal duty of care flowing from educators, if viewed as professionals, to their students. If doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers and other professionals are charged with a duty owing to the public whom they serve, it could be said that nothing in the law precludes similar treatment of professional educators. Nor would creation of a standard with which to judge an educator's performance of that duty necessarily pose an insurmountable obstacle. (See, generally, Elson, A Common Law Remedy for the Educational Harms Caused by Incompetent or Careless Teaching, 73 N.W.L.Rev. 641, 693-744.) As for proximate causation, while this element might indeed be difficult, if not impossible, to prove in view of the many collateral factors involved in the learning process, it perhaps assumes too much to conclude that it could never be established. This would leave only the element of injury and who can in good faith deny that a student who upon graduation from high school cannot comprehend simple English a deficiency allegedly attributable to the negligence of his educators has not in some fashion been "injured".

The fact that a complaint alleging "educational malpractice" might on the pleadings state a cause of action within traditional notions of tort law does not, however, require that it be sustained. The heart of the matter is whether, assuming that such a cause of action may be stated, the courts should, as a matter of public policy, entertain such claims. We believe they should not.

Control and management of educational affairs is vested in the Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Education (N.Y.Const., art. V, § 4; art. XI, § 2; Education Law, §§ 207, 305; see Matter of New York City School Bds. Assn. v. Board of Educ., 39 N.Y.2d 111, 116, 383 N.Y.S.2d 208, 211, 347 N.E.2d 568, 571; Matter of Ocean Hill-Brownsville Governing Bd. v. Board of Educ., 23 N.Y.2d 483, 485, 297 N.Y.S.2d 568, 569, 245 N.E.2d 219, 220). We have only recently observed: "The general legislative and constitutional system for the maintenance of public schools secures review by the board of education and, on the State level, by the Commissioner of Education. The purpose of these provisions 'is to make all matters pertaining to the general school system of the state within the authority and control of the department of education and to remove the same so far as practicable and possible from controversies in the courts.' (Bullock...