Hendrickson v. Moses Lake Sch. Dist., 34197-6-III

• Decision Date: 08 June 2017
• Docket Number: No. 34197-6-III,34197-6-III
• Citation: 398 P.3d 1199,199 Wash.App. 244
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals
• Parties: Heidi Jo HENDRICKSON, a single person, Appellant, v. MOSES LAKE SCHOOL DISTRICT, a municipal corporation, Respondent.

199 Wash.App. 244

398 P.3d 1199

Heidi Jo HENDRICKSON, a single person, Appellant,

v.MOSES LAKE SCHOOL DISTRICT, a municipal corporation, Respondent.

No. 34197-6-III

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 3.

JUNE 8, 2017

George M. Ahrend, Ahrend Law Firm PLLC, 100 E. Broadway Ave., Moses Lake, WA, 98837-1740, Matthew C. Albrecht, Albrecht Law PLLC, 421 W. Riverside Ave., Ste. 614, Spokane, WA, 99201-0402, Bryce Patrick McPartland, McPartland Law Offices, P.O. Box 1055, Moses Lake, WA, 98837-0160, for Appellant.

Gerald John Moberg, James Edyrn Baker, Jerry Moberg & Associates, P.S., P.O. Box 130, 124 3rd Ave. S.W., Ephrata, WA, 98823-0130, Patrick Ross Moberg, Jerry Moberg and Assoc., 124 3rd Ave. S.W., P.O. Box 130, Ephrata, WA, 98823-5100, for Respondent.

Pennell, J.¶1 School districts have a special duty to protect students in their custody and care. Heidi Jo Hendrickson claims the Moses Lake School District (the district) violated this duty when she severed her thumb during shop class. At trial, the court declined to issue a jury instruction on the district's enhanced duty of care. Instead, the instructions were limited to ordinary principles of duty and contributory negligence. We agree with Ms. Hendrickson that the trial court should have instructed the jury about the district's heightened duty of care. However, contributory negligence remained applicable. Because the inadequate instruction about the district's duty could have impacted the jury's verdict, this matter is remanded for retrial.

FACTS

¶2 Fifteen-year-old freshman Heidi Hendrickson injured herself while working on a project for shop class. Using a push stick, Ms. Hendrickson guided a board through a table saw to make a small cut. When she felt the board come to a stop, she became scared. She set the push stick down, tried to wiggle the board free, and cut her right thumb. At the time Ms. Hendrickson cut herself, Kevin Chestnut, her shop teacher, could see the table saw area but was standing in a fenced area outside the back of the room. As a result of that cut, doctors amputated Ms. Hendrickson's thumb to her first joint. Ms. Hendrickson sued the district, alleging negligence in that the district (1) failed to use and maintain required safety equipment and guards, (2) failed to provide her with reasonable instruction, and/or (3) failed to reasonably supervise her on the use of the table saw.

¶3 At trial, Mr. Chestnut testified about how he trains students to use the table saw. After demonstrating two different types of cuts, the students would make those cuts one at a time until they performed the cut correctly. The students then took a written test. Once they passed the test, Mr. Chestnut would supervise the students over the next six weeks as they made 40-50 cuts. If the students earned his trust, Mr. Chestnut allowed them to use the table saw on their own. Specifically regarding the safe use of the table saw, Mr. Chestnut testified he told the students to always use a push stick when making their cuts and to turn off the table saw if anything unusual happens. Mr. Chestnut also stated he removed the anti-kickback device and the splitter from the table saw because, if those components became misaligned, operating the table saw could be "extremely dangerous." 5 Verbatim Report of Proceedings (Feb. 1, 2016) at 925. According to Mr. Chestnut, Ms. Hendrickson made 40-50 cuts correctly before he allowed her to use the saw on her own. At the time of her injury, Ms. Hendrickson had made approximately 100 cuts.

¶4 Before submitting the case to the jury, the trial court heard extensive argument on jury instructions. Ms. Hendrickson proposed the following instruction:

A school district has a "special relationship" with a student in its custody and a heightened duty of care to protect him or her from foreseeable harm. Harm is foreseeable if the risk from which it results was known, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been known. The imposition of this duty is based on the placement of the student in the care of the school with the resulting loss of the student's ability to protect himself or herself. The relationship between a school district and a student is not a voluntary relationship, as children are required by law to attend school. The protective custody of teachers is thus mandatorily substituted for that of the parent.

Clerk's Papers (CP) at 1308. The court declined to give that instruction, instead instructing the jury as follows:

INSTRUCTION NO. 12

Negligence is the failure to exercise ordinary care. It is the doing of some act that a reasonably careful person would not do under the same or similar circumstances or the failure to do some act that a reasonably careful person would have done under the same or similar circumstances.

INSTRUCTION NO. 13

Ordinary care means the care a reasonably careful person would exercise under the same or similar circumstances.

INSTRUCTION NO. 14

When referring to a child, ordinary care means the same care that a reasonably careful child of the same age, intelligence, maturity, training, and experience would exercise under the same or similar circumstances.

....

INSTRUCTION NO. 18

Every person has the right to assume that others will exercise ordinary care, and a person has a right to proceed on such assumption until he or she knows, or in the exercise of ordinary care should know, to the contrary.

CP at 1528-30, 1534. Ms. Hendrickson filed a written exception to the court's refusal to give the special relationship instruction.

¶5 Additionally over Ms. Hendrickson's objection, the trial court instructed the jury on the district's affirmative defense of Ms. Hendrickson's contributory negligence. The district claimed Ms. Hendrickson's injuries were proximately caused by her (1) failure to use a push stick while operating the table saw and (2) failure to turn off the table saw after the board became stuck in the saw. The district emphasized Ms. Hendrickson's alleged contributory negligence in its closing argument to the jury.

¶6 The jury found the district was negligent. However, the jury also found the district's negligence was not a proximate cause of Ms. Hendrickson's injury. The court entered judgment on the verdict. Ms. Hendrickson appeals.

ANALYSIS

¶7 This court reviews legal errors injury instructions de novo. Hopkins v . Seattle Pub. Sch. Dist. No. 1 , 195 Wash.App. 96, 106, 380 P.3d 584, review denied , 186 Wash.2d 1029, 385 P.3d 123 (2016). Jury instructions are sufficient if they are supported by the evidence, allow each party to argue its theory of the case, are not misleading, and properly inform the trier of fact of the applicable law when read as a whole. Id. An instruction is erroneous if any of these elements is absent. Id. If an instruction misstates the law, prejudice is presumed and is grounds for reversal unless the error was harmless. Id.

Jury instructions and the district's duty

¶8 There is no serious dispute over whether the trial court should have issued an instruction explaining the district's heightened duty of care. School districts have a special relationship with the students in their custody. Id. Based on this relationship, school districts have a duty "to anticipate dangers which may reasonably be anticipated, and to then take precautions to protect the pupils in [their] custody from such dangers." McLeod v . Grant County Sch. Dist. , 42 Wash.2d 316, 320, 255 P.2d 360 (1953). Jurors are entitled to receive instructions on the unique nature of a school district's duty of care. Hopkins , 195 Wash.App. at 108, 380 P.3d 584. The failure to provide such instruction is error. Id. Given this legal landscape, the trial court should have provided an instruction explaining the district's enhanced duty of care.¹ The only real argument is whether the absence of such an instruction prejudiced the jury's verdict.

¶9 The disagreement over prejudice stems from the unique nature of the jury's verdict. Had the jury found the district was not negligent, it would not have reached the question of proximate cause and prejudice would easily have been presumed. Id. at 104, 108, 380 P.3d 584 ; Quynn v . Bellevue Sch. Dist. , 195 Wash.App. 627, 631, 643, 383 P.3d 1053 (2016). But the jury did find the district negligent. It only denied relief to Ms. Hendrickson through its determination of proximate cause. Based on this unique context, the district argues the jury's verdict would have been the same regardless of an instruction on an enhanced duty of care. Because there was no causal link between the district's conduct and Ms. Hendrickson's injuries, the district claims the rejection of Ms. Hendrickson's proffered instruction could not have impacted the jury's verdict. See Griffin v . W. RS, Inc ., 143 Wash.2d 81, 88, 18 P.3d 558 (2001).

¶10 The district's analysis of prejudice would have force if Ms. Hendrickson had only alleged one theory of negligence. Breach of a lesser duty necessarily implies breach of a corresponding greater duty. If there is no causal connection between the breach of a lesser duty and the plaintiff's injuries, then there is necessarily no causal connection between the breach of a greater duty and the plaintiff's injuries. See id. (instructing on a heightened duty "would matter only if the jury had rejected breach of the lesser included duty").

¶11 But Ms. Hendrickson alleged three distinct types of duties and breach. The jury made no findings as to whether negligence pertained to one theory, two, or all three. If the jury had found negligence as to all three theories, but no proximate cause, the analysis would be the same as if there had only been one theory of negligence. Yet as the district recognizes, it is possible, if not probable, that the jury found the district negligent as to only one of Ms. Hendrickson's theories. Specifically, given Mr. Chestnut's testimony that he removed the table saw's anti-kickback device and splitter, the jury could have found the district negligent based on Ms....