MONTPELIER, Vt. (Legal Newsline) - A Vermont public school district must pay a student nearly $500,000 over an assault that occurred when the high school football team met for a party at a private home.
The Vermont Supreme Court in January rejected arguments the Milton High School district couldn’t be held liable for the hazing incident because it wasn’t foreseeable and none of its employees were present. The plaintiff said as a freshman recruit to the team he was sexually assaulted with a pool cue and that school officials had been informed of similar attacks, including one involving a student who later committed suicide.
The trial judge correctly concluded “given the general history of harassing behavior within the football team and the specific history of sexually assaultive behavior at a past team dinner, a factfinder could conclude that the school had a duty to prohibit unsupervised 'team dinners’ by threatening players with dismissal from the team if they attended such dinners,” the state’s highest court ruled.
The plaintiff said he attended a party at one of the members’ homes in October 2012, when he was dragged to the basement and assaulted as part of a hazing ritual. In 2013, the high school principal spoke to the plaintiff after learning freshmen were resisting joining the team because of rumors of sexual assaults.
When the principal said she’d shut the football program down if the rumors were true, the plaintiff said he denied them and later spoke to incoming freshmen and said he’d lied about the attacks.
A jury awarded the plaintiff $260,000, finding the plaintiff 40% at fault. The court later increased the award to $467,000.
In 2014, state officials opened an investigation into the allegations and five Milton High School football players ultimately pleaded guilty to assault. One victim of sexual assault committed suicide in August 2012.
The school district appealed on several grounds including the trial judge’s denial of summary judgment at the outset of the trial and judgment as a matter of law after the evidence had been submitted to the jury. The high court ruled that the denial of summary judgment became moot once the jury trial began and the school district failed to renew its motion for judgment as a matter of law as required under Vermont law to preserve the argument for appeal.
One critical question was whether foreseeability, an essential element of tort liability, was a question of law or fact. The Supreme Court ruled that in this case it was a question for the jury to decide, and there was sufficient evidence school officials knew about sexual harassment of football players before the plaintiff’s assault that they could have foreseen the attack.
The fact the attack occurred at a private home with no school officials present didn’t shield the school district from liability, the court ruled.