involved in placing the economic burden of the loss on the defendant.
The court concluded that
a university has a special relationship with a student and a corresponding duty to take reasonable measures to prevent his or her suicide in the following circumstances. Where a university has actual knowledge of a student's suicide attempt that occurred while enrolled at the university or recently before matriculation, or of a student's stated plans or intentions to commit suicide, the university has a duty to take reasonable measures under the circumstances to protect the student from self-harm [96 N.E.3d at 142–43].
The court further explained that the duty is created by foreseeability of the student's intent to commit suicide. “Nonclinicians are…not expected to discern suicidal tendencies where the student has not stated his or her plans or intentions to commit suicide… The duty is not triggered merely by a university's knowledge of a student's suicidal ideation without any stated plans or intentions to act on such thoughts” (96 N.E.3d at 144).
The court concluded that no duty had been created in this case. Nguyen had not told any MIT staff that he had “stated plans or intentions” to commit suicide, and his earlier suicide attempts, about which his professors were unaware, had occurred more than a year before he matriculated at MIT. None of the student's medical providers considered him suicidal, and his professors, who were not trained clinicians, could not be expected to intuit his intent. Therefore, no special relationship was created, and the court affirmed the lower court's award of summary judgment to the defendants on the tort claims.
Similarly, an Ohio appeals court concluded that Wright State University did not have a special relationship with a student who committed suicide because the student did not rely on the university. Reliance on the institution by a student to protect him from harm, including self-harm, is a required element of the special relationship analysis. In Connor v. Wright State University, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 5988 (Ct. App. Ohio Dec. 24, 2013), the parents of a student who committed suicide sued the university after their son inhaled a lethal dose of helium. Their son, Nathan, had attempted suicide two months earlier; on the second occasion when the university police received an anonymous call that Nathan was preparing to commit suicide by inhaling helium, the police went to his residence and spoke with him. Nathan assured them that he did not plan to commit suicide and that the helium was intended to blow up balloons for a party. The police determined that Nathan was not at risk and left. The court rejected the parents' claim.
A widespread misconception among college administrators is that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, discussed in Chapter 7) prevents college administrators from contacting parents or other relatives, or other college staff, if a student is threatening suicide. FERPA contains an exception for emergencies, including those involving health and safety. Furthermore, there is no private right of action under FERPA since the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Doe v. Gonzaga University. Therefore, a proactive stance could both save the lives of students and protect the institution against legal liability.
3.2.3 Educational malpractice and related claims. Another potential source of negligence liability, albeit a generally unsuccessful one for plaintiffs, is the doctrine of “educational malpractice.” The claim arises from the duty assumed by a professional not to harm the individuals relying on the professional's expertise.
Although courts often sympathize with students who claim that they have not learned what they should have learned or that their professors were negligent in teaching or supervising them, courts have been reluctant to create a cause of action for educational malpractice. In Ross v. Creighton University, 740 F. Supp. 1319 (N.D. Ill. 1990), the trial judge dismissed the claim by a former athlete that the university had negligently failed to educate him, although it did allow a contract claim to survive dismissal. Asserting that the university's curriculum was too difficult for him, the former basketball player argued that Creighton had a duty to educate him and not simply allow him to attend while maintaining his athletic eligibility. The judge disagreed, ruling that the student was ultimately responsible for his academic success. The appellate court affirmed (957 F.2d 410 (7th Cir. 1992)).
Individuals claiming to have been harmed by students whose instruction was inadequate have also failed in their claims of educational malpractice. In Moore v. Vanderloo, 386 N.W.2d 108 (Iowa 1986), the plaintiff was a patient injured by a chiropractor trained at Palmer College of Chiropractic. The patient sued the college, claiming that the injuries were a result of the chiropractor's inadequate training. After reviewing cases from other jurisdictions, the Iowa Supreme Court decided against permitting a cause of action for educational malpractice.
The court gave four reasons for its decision:
1 There is no satisfactory standard of care by which to measure an educator's conduct.
2 The cause of the student's failure to learn is inherently uncertain, as is the nature of damages.
3 Permitting such claims would flood the courts with litigation and would thus place a substantial burden on educational institutions.
4 The courts are not equipped to oversee the day-to-day operation of educational institutions.
Citing Moore, a Missouri appellate court awarded summary judgment to a flight school that was sued for negligence after a plane, piloted by a student trained at the school, crashed, killing him and four passengers. The court in Dallas Airmotive v. Flightsafety International, Inc., 277 S.W.3d 696 (Mo. Ct. App. 2008) characterized the lawsuit, brought by the relatives of the individuals killed in the crash, as a claim for educational malpractice and stated that there was no duty on the school's part to protect students from harm related to negligent instruction. An Ohio appellate court refused to consider educational malpractice claims as well (Trutschel v. Kettering Medical Center, 2009 Ohio App. LEXIS 2862 (Ohio Ct. App. July 2, 2009)).
In addition to attempting to state claims of educational malpractice, students have turned to other theories in an attempt to recover for injuries allegedly incurred by relying on incorrect advice of academic advisors. In Hendricks v. Clemson University, 578 S.E.2d 711 (S.C. 2003), the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed the ruling of a state appellate court that would have allowed the plaintiff, a student-athlete who lost eligibility to play baseball because of the incorrect advice he received from an academic advisor, to state claims of negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty. The court rejected the student's argument that the university had affirmatively assumed a duty of care when it undertook to advise him on the courses necessary for National Collegiate Athletic Association eligibility, finding no state law precedents that recognized such a duty. The court also refused to recognize a fiduciary relationship between the student and the advisor, and similarly rejected the breach of contract claim, finding no written promise by the university to ensure the student's athletic eligibility.
Another case, however, demonstrates a court's willingness to entertain student negligence claims for specific acts of alleged misfeasance or nonfeasance. In Johnson v. Schmitz, 119 F. Supp. 2d 90 (D. Conn. 2000), a doctoral student sued Yale University and several faculty members, alleging that the chair of his dissertation committee had misappropriated the student's idea for his dissertation research and took credit for it himself. The student filed claims of negligence, breach of contract, breach of a fiduciary duty, and defamation. The breach of contract claim was premised on the argument that Yale had made both express and implied promises to “safeguard students from academic misconduct” (119 F. Supp. 2d at 96). The court refused to dismiss the negligence claim, stating that because the student was alleging intentional misconduct by the faculty members, it was not an educational malpractice claim. The court ruled that the student should be given an opportunity to demonstrate that Yale had a duty to
