HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - A Connecticut school district can’t be held liable for illegal sex between a female theater teacher and a student, an appeals court ruled, because the two took care to avoid being discovered and school officials had no reason to suspect wrongdoing.
Citing the holding by the Connecticut Supreme Court in a similar case last year, the Appellate Court upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit by a plaintiff identified as John Doe over assaults that occurred at Wilbur Cross High School in the 2016-2017 school year. The appeals court relied on the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision shielding the town of Madison from liability over another female teacher’s assault of high school football players.
In this case, Doe joined a school play and teacher Jennifer Frechette exchanged text messages with him that gradually escalated to flirting and sex. Frechette performed oral sex on Doe in her classroom and then they were discovered together by a security guard in the theater dressing room. Frechette ultimately pled guilty to sex abuse and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Doe sued the New Haven School District, accusing officials of negligent hiring and failing to protect him against the abuse. A trial court dismissed the case, citing governmental immunity. The appeals court agreed, in an opinion published Aug. 23.
First, the court said there was no evidence when Frechette was hired in 2013 that she was anything other than an exemplary teacher. The city was protected by sovereign immunity even if school officials were negligent, the court continued, because Doe wasn’t an “identifiable person subject to imminent harm.”
Municipalities are generally immune from liability for the discretionary acts of their employees, including hiring. The plaintiff argued New Haven still could be liable because school employees failed to fulfill their ministerial, or non-discretionary, duty to report suspected child abuse and violated a rule against giving students “free periods.” The court rejected those claims as well.
Although Frechette had collected contact information from all the students in the play, that wasn’t enough to cause a reasonable person to suspect any students were at imminent risk of sexual abuse. Neither is it suspicious for teachers to meet privately with students, the court said.
“Nothing in the record supported the plaintiff’s assertion that the defendants had knowledge of, or reasonable cause to suspect,” that the teacher would assault him, however, the court ruled.
“No one had observed the inappropriate contact between him and Frechette and they took measures to avoid being discovered,” the court concluded.