S.P. v. Ne. Indep. Sch. Dist.
| Decision Date | 30 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | SA-21-CV-0388-JKP-RBF |
| Parties | S.P., Plaintiff, v. NORTHEAST INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Texas |
Before the Court is a Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 6) filed by Defendant Northeast Independent School District (“NEISD”). Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) Defendant seeks to dismiss Plaintiff's claims. With the filing of Plaintiff's response (ECF No. 7) and Defendant's reply brief (ECF No. 8), the motion is ripe and ready for ruling. After considering the motion, other briefing, pleadings, and applicable law, the Court grants the motion for the reasons stated herein.
In April 2021, Plaintiff S.P. commenced this action based upon a sexual assault perpetrated against her by a former teacher. Pl.'s Orig. Compl. [hereinafter Compl.] ¶ 1. While she was an “eighth grader at Nimitz Middle School in NEISD . . . her 37-year-old teacher, Rey Trevino meticulously preyed on and groomed her to satisfy his sexual needs.” Id. ¶ 1.
Trevino began the grooming process by inviting S.P. and a few of her friends to eat lunch with him in his classroom away from other students. Trevino portrayed himself as the cool teacher whom the students could trust and confide in. Trevino then isolated S.P. by inviting her to be alone with him in his classroom during lunch and after school. Once Trevino had S.P. alone, he started flirting with her by, among other things, telling her she was pretty.
Id. Although she turned eighteen in January of this year, the events leading to this litigation began when she was fourteen. See id. & n.1. She asserts two claims: (1) discrimination under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a), and (2) violation of substantive due process under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See id. ¶¶ 21-42.
Defendant has moved to dismiss both claims. See Mot. at 3-9. In response, Plaintiff asserts that she has adequately pled a Title IX violation and thus requests denial of the motion. Resp. at 1, 3-8. In the alternative, she asks for leave to amend her complaint with additional factual allegations. See id. at 9-10. Although she requests that the motion be denied in its entirety, she does not address Defendant's reasons for dismissing her due process claim. See, generally, id. In reply, Defendant argues that Plaintiff has abandoned the due process claim by failing to address it. Reply at 8-9. The motion is ripe for ruling.
Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), Defendant seeks dismissal of Plaintiff's claims based on insufficient factual allegations. Under Rule 12(b)(6), litigants may move to dismiss asserted claims for “failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted.” As required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2), every pleading that states a claim for relief must contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Such requirement provides opposing parties “fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)).
In general, a court addressing a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) “must limit itself to the contents of the pleadings, including attachments thereto.” Brand Coupon Network, L.L.C. v. Catalina Mktg. Corp., 748 F.3d 631, 635 (5th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Additionally, courts may take judicial notice of matters of public record. Norris v. Hearst Trust, 500 F.3d 454, 461 n.9 (5th Cir. 2007).[2] Furthermore, when ruling on a motion to dismiss, courts “construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and draw all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor.” Severance v. Patterson, 566 F.3d 490, 501 (5th Cir. 2009). Despite the natural focus on the allegations of the operative pleading, the party moving for dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) “carries the burden of proof for dismissal.” Newton v. Bank of Am., N.A., No. CV SA-19-CA-797-FB, 2019 WL 6048000, at *2 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 29, 2019).
“[A] well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of [the alleged] facts is improbable, and ‘that a recovery is very remote and unlikely.'” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 (citation omitted). Nevertheless, plaintiffs must provide “more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. at 555; accord Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (). Facts alleged by the plaintiff must “raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must plead “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. at 570.
A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. The plausibility standard is not akin to a “probability requirement, ” but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. Where a complaint pleads facts that are “merely consistent with” a defendant's liability, it “stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief.'”
Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citations omitted). As Twombly states, to avoid dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), plaintiffs must allege facts that “nudge” an asserted claim “across the line from conceivable to plausible.” 550 U.S. at 570. The focus is not on whether the plaintiff will ultimately prevail, but whether that party should be permitted to present evidence to support adequately asserted claims. Id. at 563 n.8.
Although Plaintiff asserts a due process claim in her original complaint, she has abandoned that claim by failing to defend it in response to the motion to dismiss. See Black v. Panola Sch. Dist., 461 F.3d 584, 588 n.1 (5th Cir. 2006) ( that plaintiff abandoned claim when she failed to defend in response to motion to dismiss); Weaver v. Basic Energy Servs., L.P., MO-13-CV-022, 2014 WL 12513180, at *2 (W.D. Tex. Jan. 8, 2014), aff'd, 578 Fed.Appx. 449 (5th Cir. 2014). The Court finds that Plaintiff has abandoned her due process claim and thus dismisses it.
Unless excepted under its provisions, Title IX provides that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). Relying on the “text of Title IX, which, subject to a list of narrow exceptions not at issue here, broadly prohibits a funding recipient from subjecting any person to ‘discrimination' ‘on the basis of sex, '” the Supreme Court has held that there is a private cause of action for damages for Title IX violations. Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 544 U.S. 167, 173 (2005). While Title IX expressly mentions discrimination, sexual harassment and abuse are likewise proscribed. See Franklin v. Gwinnett Cty. Pub. Sch., 503 U.S. 60, 75 (1992). The Court may use the terms discrimination, harassment, and abuse interchangeably or jointly, but they all exhibit conduct that violates Title IX.
The Supreme Court has “consistently interpreted Title IX's private cause of action broadly to encompass diverse forms of intentional sex discrimination.” Jackson, 544 U.S. at 183. Never theless, “a recipient of federal funds may be liable in damages under Title IX only for its own misconduct.” Davis ex rel. Lashonda D. v. Monroe Cty. Bd. of Educ., 526 U.S. 629, 640 (1999). Liability does not extend to misconduct of third parties. See id. at 641. And a Title IX “action will lie only for harassment that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim's access to an educational opportunity or benefit.” Id. at 633.
Further, although the Supreme Court has recognized an implied right of action under Title IX for teacher-on-student sexual harassment, “damages may not be recovered in those circumstances unless an official of the school district who at a minimum has authority to institute corrective measures on the district's behalf has actual notice of, and is deliberately indifferent to, the teacher's misconduct.” Gebser v. Lago Vista Indep. Sch. Dist., 524 U.S. 274, 277 (1998). In short, “Title IX requires actual notice to an ‘appropriate person' and ‘an opportunity for voluntary compliance.'” Doe v. Edgewood Indep. Sch. Dist., 964 F.3d 351, 358 (5th Cir. 2020) (citations omitted). And deliberate indifference is a “high bar” where “neither negligence nor mere unreasonableness” suffices. Id. at 356 (citations omitted).
Stated succinctly, following Gebser, “plaintiffs seeking damages for a teacher's sexual harassment of a student must show that (1) an employee of a federal funding recipient with supervisory power over the alleged harasser (2) had actual knowledge of the harassment and (3) responded with deliberate indifference.” A.W. v. Humble Indep. Sch. Dist., 25 F.Supp.3d 973, 98485 (S.D. Tex. 2014), aff'd sub nom. King-White v. Humble Indep. Sch. Dist., 803 F.3d 754 (5th Cir. 2015). Similarly, in a related context, the Fifth Circuit has held:
A school district that receives federal funds may be liable for student-on-student harassment if the district (1) had actual knowledge of the harassment, (2) the harasser was under the district's control, (3) the harassment was based on the victim's sex, (4)...
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