OLYMPIA, Wash. (Legal Newsline) - Washington State University had no legal duty to protect a freshman from being raped by a fellow student at an off-campus party, the Washington Supreme Court ruled, rejecting the plaintiff’s argument the school’s “special relationship” with students should extend past the campus borders.
Answering a question about Washington law posed by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the state’s high court ruled that the university’s duty to protect students applied only on campus. Two justices signed a lengthy dissent, arguing “the legal relationship between a university and its students has steadily evolved” and should include liability for off-campus incidents.
Madeleine Barlow sued Washington State University after she was raped by Thomas Culhane at his off-campus apartment in 2017. Culhane had been suspended from another WSU campus after being accused of sexual misconduct, but was allowed to transfer to WSU-Pullman. He was later expelled from WSU and convicted of second-degree rape.
Barlow argued WSU knew of Culhane’s propensity for rape and should have protected her from him due to the a “special relationship” a school has with its students, similar to the obligation landowners have to protect visitors against risks they are aware of and can control.
A federal trial court dismissed Barlow’s claim, finding no such duty for universities, and she appealed to the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit certified the question to the Washington Supreme Court, which declined to extend liability in a Jan. 4 decision by Justice Charles W. Johnson.
Washington courts have found public elementary and high schools have a duty to protect students against assaults, even off campus, but that is because school attendance is mandatory and K-12 schools “have almost complete control over their students and their activities.”
“That level of control simply does not exist here,” the court said. “Ms. Barlow was not a vulnerable adult lacking the faculties to care for herself. The university had no power to control her decisions or actions away from campus.”
The majority rejected Barlow’s argument the school was engaging in “victim blaming” by refusing to accept a duty to protect her, saying “the blame lies on Culhane.” It also rejected comparisons to prior decisions where it found mental health professionals and police officers potentially liable for injuries committed by patients and criminals they knew were a risk to the public.
“The university did not have sufficient insight into the potential dangerousness of Culhane, the university would not have been able to identify Barlow as a potential victim, and the university could not exercise sufficient control of Culhane to manifest the duty,” the court concluded.
Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis dissented, joined by Chief Justice Steven Gonzalez saying, “the majority’s rigid premises liability approach does not comport with the modern reality of university student life.” They said the court should have recognized changes in society and the law require an extension of liability to include injuries caused by students off campus.
“The university had sufficient oversight and actual knowledge of the danger Culhane posed and had a duty to protect Barlow—a freshman who had been on campus just a few days and was dangerously intoxicated — from foreseeable harm,” the dissenters said.