Donohue v. Copiague Union Free School District.

Citation64 A.D.2d 29,407 N.Y.S.2d 874
PartiesEdward DONOHUE, Appellant, v. COPIAGUE UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, Respondent.
Decision Date31 July 1978
CourtNew York Supreme Court Appellate Division

Siben & Siben, Bay Shore (Bernard M. Rosen and Sidney R. Siben, Bay Shore, on the brief), for appellant.

Henry A. Weinstein, Garden City (Charles D. Maurer, Garden City, on the brief), for respondent.

Before DAMIANI, J. P., and SUOZZI, RABIN and HAWKINS, JJ.

DAMIANI, Justice Presiding.

The plaintiff appeals from an order which dismissed his complaint.

The issue before us is whether the courts of this State recognize a cause of action to recover for so-called "educational malpractice", or for breach of a statutory duty to educate. We hold that such causes of action are not recognized in this State.

The plaintiff was a student at a high school operated by the defendant school district. Although he received failing grades in several subjects and lacked basic reading and writing skills, he was permitted to graduate. Thereafter, he found it necessary to seek tutoring in order to acquire those basic skills which he had not obtained in high school.

The plaintiff then commenced this action to recover $5,000,000 in damages for the alleged deficiencies in his knowledge. The first cause of action asserted in the complaint sounds in negligence. It alleges that the defendant owed a duty of care to:

"teach the several and varied subjects to the plaintiff; ascertain his learning capacity and ability; and correctly and properly test him for such capacity in order to evaluate his ability to comprehend the subject matters of the various courses and have sufficient understanding and comprehension of subject matters in said courses as to be able to achieve sufficient passing grades in said subject matters, and therefore, qualify for a Certificate of Graduation."

It further alleges that because the plaintiff, after graduation, was unable to read and write simple basic English and did not have an understanding of the other subjects covered in his high school courses, the defendant, its agents, servants and/or employees, breached their duty to him in that they:

"gave to the plaintiff passing grades and/or minimal or failing grades in various subjects; failed to evaluate the plaintiff'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 the plaintiff in order to ascertain his ability to comprehend and understand such subject 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 the plaintiff is concerned in order to ascertain the learning capacity, intelligence and intellectual absorption on the part of the plaintiff; failed to hire proper personnel, experienced in the handling of such matters; failed to teach the plaintiff in such a manner so that he could reasonably understand what was necessary under the circumstances so that he could cope with the various subjects which they tried to make the plaintiff understand; failed to properly supervise the plaintiff; failed to advise his parents of the difficulty and necessity to call in psychiatric help; that the processes practiced were defective and not commensurate with a student attending a high school within the County of Suffolk; failed to adopt the accepted professional standards and methods to evaluate and cope with plaintiff's problems which constituted educational malpractice."

The second cause of action asserted in the complaint alleges that the plaintiff is the third-party beneficiary of a duty imposed upon the defendant by section 1 of article XI of the New York State Constitution, which provides:

"The 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."

The plaintiff alleges that pursuant to this duty, the defendant undertook to operate a public school, but that it failed to educate him.

The defendant moved to dismiss the complaint, Inter alia, pursuant to CPLR 3211 (subd. (a), par. 7) for failure to state a cause of action. Special Term granted the motion to dismiss, relying upon the California case of Peter W. v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 60 Cal.App.3d 814, 131 Cal.Rptr. 854. We affirm.

With respect to the first cause of action alleging negligence or so-called "educational malpractice", it is axiomatic that no recovery may be had unless (1) the defendant owed the plaintiff a cognizable duty of care, (2) the defendant failed to discharge that duty and (3) the plaintiff suffered damage as a proximate result of such failure (41 N.Y.Jur., Negligence, § 7). An action to recover for negligence does not lie unless there exists a duty on the part of the defendant and a corresponding right in the plaintiff (Palsgraf v. Long Is. R.R. Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 341, 162 N.E. 99).

The question of whether, in any particular set of circumstances, one party owes a duty of care to another is entirely one of law to be determined by the courts (Prosser, Law of Torts (4th ed.), § 37, p. 206). Judicial recognition of the existence of a duty of care is dependent upon principles of sound public policy and involves the consideration of numerous relevant factors which include, Inter alia: moral considerations arising from the view of society towards the relationship of the parties, the degree to which the courts should be involved in the regulation of that relationship and the social utility of the activity out of which the alleged injury arises; Preventative considerations, which involve the ability of the defendant to adopt practical means of preventing injury, the possibility that reasonable men can agree as to the proper course to be followed to prevent injury, the degree of certainty that the alleged injuries were proximately caused by the defendant and the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff; Economic considerations, which include the ability of the defendant to respond in damages; and Administrative considerations, which concern the ability of the courts to cope with a flood of new litigation, the probability of feigned claims and the difficulties inherent in proving the plaintiff's case (see Prosser, Law of Torts (4th ed.), § 4, pp. 16-23; Raymond v. Paradise Unified School Dist. of Butte County, 218 Cal.App.2d 1, 8-9, 31 Cal.Rptr. 847; Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal.2d 108, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561).

The issue of whether school districts are under a duty to exercise reasonable care in the instruction and supervision of students is one of first impression in the courts of this State. However, the First District Court of Appeal of the State of California has considered this precise issue and, in a comprehensive and well-reasoned opinion, has decisively held that no such duty exists (Peter W. v. San Francisco School Dist., 60 Cal.App.2d 814, 131 Cal.Rptr. 854, Supra ). The plaintiff in Peter W. alleged that as a result of the negligence of the defendant school district he had graduated from high school with an ability to read at only the fifth grade level. While noting that it was a truism that educators are bound to discharge their functions with care, the court in Peter W. found no duty of care in the legal sense running from the defendant to the plaintiff. It noted that the wrongful conduct and injuries allegedly involved in educational malfeasance were neither comprehensible nor assessable within the existing judicial framework, stating (pp. 824-825, 131 Cal.Rptr. pp. 860-861):

"Unlike the activity of the highway or the marketplace, classroom methodology affords no readily acceptable standards of care, or cause, or injury. The science of pedagogy itself is fraught with different and conflicting theories of how or what a child should be taught, and any layman might and commonly does have his own emphatic views on the subject. The 'injury' claimed here is plaintiff's inability to read and write. Substantial professional authority attests that the achievement of literacy in the schools, or its failure, are influenced by a host of factors which affect the pupil subjectively, from outside the formal teaching process, and beyond the control of its ministers. They may be physical, neurological, emotional, cultural, environmental; they may be present but not perceived, recognized but not identified.

"We find in this situation no conceivable 'workability of a rule of care' against which defendants' alleged conduct may be measured * * * no reasonable 'degree of certainty that * * * plaintiff suffered injury' within the meaning of the law of negligence * * * (referring to Rest.2d, Torts, § 281), and no such perceptible 'connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered,' as alleged, which would establish a causal link between them within the same meaning.

"These recognized policy considerations alone negate an actionable 'duty of care' in persons and agencies who administer the academic phases of the public educational process. Others, which are even more important in practical terms, command the same result. Few of our institutions, if any, have aroused the controversies or incurred the public dissatisfaction, which have attended the operation of the public schools during the last few decades. Rightly or wrongly, but widely, they are charged with outright failure in the achievement of their educational objectives; according to some critics, they bear responsibility for many of the social and moral problems of our society at large. Their public plight in these respects is attested in the daily media, in bitter governing board elections, in wholesale rejections of school bond proposals, and in survey upon survey. ...

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