FREDERICK HOFF еt al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. VACAVILLE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant and Respondent.
No. S050162
Supreme Court of California
Dec. 31, 1998.
19 Cal. 4th 925
Michael W. Milward and Bryan M. Hansen for Plaintiffs and Appellants.
Farmer & Murphy, Craig E. Farmer and Frank J. Torrano for Northern California Regional Liability Excess Fund Joint Powers Authority, Southern California Regional Liability Excess Fund Joint Powers Authority and Schools Excess Liability Fund as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.
OPINION
CHIN, J.-Plaintiff Frederick Hoff (Hoff) suffered serious injuries when a student exiting a high school parking lot jumped the curb with his car and struck Hoff, who was on the sidewalk across the street. We granted review to consider whether Hoff can pursue a negligence claim against the school district based on the breach of a duty to supervise the student. On the facts of this case, we conclude that neither the school district nor any of its employees owed a duty to Hoff, a nonstudent who was not on school property at the time of the accident. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which held to the contrary.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The trial court entered judgment for the Vacаville Unified School District (District) upon granting a motion for nonsuit after opening statement. Accordingly, on review, we accept as true all facts Hoff asserted in his opening statement and indulge every legitimate inference those facts support. (Willis v. Gordon (1978) 20 Cal.3d 629, 633 [143 Cal.Rptr. 723, 574 P.2d 794]; Abeyta v. Superior Court (1993) 17 Cal.App.4th 1037, 1041 [21 Cal.Rptr.2d 680].)
At the end of the last day of the 1991-1992 school year, Jason Lozano, a 16-year-old student at Vacaville High School, lost control of his car as he exited the school‘s overflow parking lot and struck Hoff. In exiting the lot, Lozano had floor[ed] the accelerator, peeled out with the wheels screeching, fishtailed, and jumped the curb and hit Hoff, who was walking on the sidewalk across the street. Lozano had been driving for six months, had no history of misbehavior, and obeyed his school supervisors. Hoff sustained severe injuries in the accident.
Hoff filed suit seeking recovery for his injuries, naming the District as one of the defendants.1 In a negligence claim against the District, Hoff alleged that the District: (1) had statutory duties, pursuant to
Trial against the District began in September 1996. After Hoff‘s opening statement, the District moved for nonsuit, arguing that it owed Hoff no duty of care. Although the trial court had previously rejected the same argument in denying a summary judgment motion, it granted the motion for nonsuit, finding that the District owed Hoff no duty of care. The trial court later entered judgment for the District.
The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment, finding that the District owed a duty to exercise reasonable care in supervising its students for the protection of both students and nonstudents. We then granted the District‘s petition for review.
Under the California Tort Claims Act (
Through these statutes, the Legislaturе incorporated general standards of tort liability as the primary basis for respondeat superior liability of public entities. . . . [Citation.] (Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 54 Cal.3d at pp. 209-210.) Under them, a school district is vicariously liable for injuries proximately caused by [the] negligence of school personnel responsible for student supervision. (Dailey v. Los Angeles Unified Sch. Dist. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 741, 747 [87 Cal.Rptr. 376, 470 P.2d 360] (Dailey); see
Thus, the District‘s liability under
I. No Common Law Duty Runs to Hoff
To say that someone owes another a duty of care is a shorthand statement of a conclusion, rather than an aid to analysis in itself. . . . [D]uty is not sacrosanct in itself, but only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that the particular plaintiff is entitled to protection. [Citation.] (Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728, 734 [69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, 29 A.L.R.3d 1316].) [L]egal duties are not discoverable facts of nature, but merely conclusory expressions that, in cases of a particular type, liability should be imposed for damage done. (Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California (1976) 17 Cal.3d 425, 434 [131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334, 83 A.L.R.3d 1166] (Tarasoff).)
As a general rule оne has no duty to control the conduct of another, and no duty to warn those who may be endangered by such conduct. [Citations.] A duty may arise, however, where (a) a special relation exists between the actor and the third person which imposes a duty upon the actor to control the third person‘s conduct, or (b) a special relation exists between the actor and the other which gives the other a right to protection. (Rest.2d Torts, § 315; [citations].) (Peterson v. San Francisco Community College Dist. (1984) 36 Cal.3d 799, 806 [205 Cal.Rptr. 842, 685 P.2d 1193] (Peterson).) This rule derives from the common law‘s distinction between misfeasance and nonfeasance, and its reluctance to impose liability for the latter. [Citation.] (Tarasoff, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 435, fn. 5.)
In this case, Hoff does not argue that a special relationship exists between himself and school personnel. Rather, emphasizing that a special relationship need not exist between the defendant (here District) and victim (Mr. Hoff), and quoting Tarasoff, supra, 17 Cal.3d at page 435, Hoff argues that the special relationship between the School District and its student Jason [Lozano] imposes upon the School District a duty to exercise reasonable сare to control the student to . . . protect all persons who are foreseeably endangered by his (Jason‘s) conduct.
As we have explained, in some instances the relationship of [school personnel] to . . . students gives rise to a duty of care. . . . While
In a number of cases, California courts have recognized that a student may recover for injuries proximately caused by a breach of this duty of supervision. (E.g., Hoyem v. Manhattan Beach City Sch. Dist. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 508, 523 [150 Cal.Rptr. 1, 585 P.2d 851]; Dailey, supra, 2 Cal.3d at pp. 747-751.) However, before the Court of Appeal issued its opinion in this case, no reported California decision had considered whether the duty of student supervision that arises out of the relationship between school personnel and students may support recovery by nonstudents, like Hoff, who are injured off campus.3
In considering this novel question, it is instructive to consider the limits of the common law duty that parents owe third parties to supervise and control the conduct of their children. [A] parent may become liable for an injury caused by the child where the parent‘s negligence made it possible for the child to cause the injury complained of, and probable that [the child] would do so. [Citations.] (Buelke v. Levenstadt (1923) 190 Cal. 684, 689 [214 P. 42].) California follows the Restatement rule (Rest.2d Torts, § 316), which finds a special relationshiр between parent and child, and accordingly places upon the parent a duty to exercise reasonable care so to control his minor child as to prevent [the child] from intentionally harming others or
In Perry v. Simeone (1925) 197 Cal. 132 [239 P. 1056], we applied these principles to facts analogous to those now before us. Thеre, defendants’ 15-year-old daughter negligently operated an automobile, causing a fatal collision. On appeal, we reversed a judgment against defendants because the evidence showed they had no knowledge of the fact . . . that the[ir] daughter was or ever had been careless in the operation of the automobile, and that their only knowledge and observation of the daughter‘s habits in that regard were that [she] drove the car in a prudent and careful manner. (Id. at p. 137.) In reaching this conclusion, we refused to take judicial notice of the fact that a girl of fifteen years of age cannot possibly be competent to operate an automobile. (Id. at p. 134.) Instead, we reasoned in part that the Vehicle Code, which then established 14 as the minimum age limit for obtaining a driver‘s license, must be regarded as a declaration that persons of the age of fifteen years may be competent to operate motor vehicles. (Id. at p. 135.)
We find it appropriate to look to these limits on the common law parental duty of suрervision in determining whether, on the facts of this case, any duty of District employees to supervise students ran to Hoff. The relationship between school personnel and students is analogous in many ways to the relationship between parents and their children. At common law, [s]chool officials are said to stand in loco parentis, in the place of parents, to their students, with similar powers and responsibilities. [Citation.] (In re Christopher W. (1973) 29 Cal.App.3d 777, 780-781 [105 Cal.Rptr. 775], disapproved on another ground in In re William G. (1985) 40 Cal.3d 550, 566
This conclusion is consistent with that which courts from other jurisdictions have reached in considering claims like Hoff‘s. In Thompson v. Ange (1981) 83 A.D.2d 193 [443 N.Y.S.2d 918, 919-920] (Ange), plaintiffs sustained injury when a student driving from a high school to a vocational school caused an accident on a public highway. Plaintiffs sued school authorities in negligence, alleging they had negligently supervised the student and failed to enforce a school rule requiring students to ride a bus to the vocational school. (Ibid.) Looking to the limits of a parent‘s common law duty to supervise children, the court affirmed summary judgment for the school authorities. (Id. at p. 921.) It explained: The uncontroverted proof was that [the student] was a licensed driver. The schools’ awareness of reckless driving by some students and their concern for student safety is not sufficient to show that [the student] was anything but the average 17-year old whom the Legislature has determined may be licensed to drive[]. There is no claim that the schools had notice that [the student] was an incompetent driver. The risk that [the student] would be involved in an automobile accident was no greater than the risk incurred by thе operation of an automobile by any average 17-year old driver. (Ibid.; see also Wickey v. Sparks (Ind.Ct.App. 1994) 642 N.E.2d 262, 267 [premising lack of duty in part on lack of evidence student participated in horseplay or was otherwise an unsafe driver, despite school‘s knowledge that some students engaged in horseplay].)
Our conclusion is also consistent with Thompson v. County of Alameda (1980) 27 Cal.3d 741 [167 Cal.Rptr. 70, 614 P.2d 728, 12 A.L.R.4th 701].
Under this rule, any common law duty of District employees to supervise students did not run to Hoff. According to Hoff‘s opening statement, the accident occurred off-campus, on the sidewalk across the street from the school‘s overflow parking lot. School personnel considered Lozano a [g]ood kid who was [r]esponsible and never disobeyed them. Thus, they neither knew nor had reason to know that Lozano had a propensity to operate his car recklessly (if, in fact, he did). Accordingly, they owed Hoff no duty, and the District may not be held liable for any breach of duty by its employees.6
II. No Statutory Duty Runs to Hoff
Hoff contends his negligence claim may proceed under
A duty of care, and the attendant standard of conduct required of a reasonable [person], may of course be found in a legislative enactment which does not provide for civil liability. [Citations.] In this state a presumption of negligence arises from the violation of a statute which was enacted to protect a class of persons of which the plaintiff is a member against the type of harm which the plaintiff suffered as a result of the violation of the statute. [Citations.] The Legislature has . . . codified this presumption with the adoption of
In this case, Hoff cannot invoke
Nor can Hoff rely on
Finally, Hoff contends
Hoff‘s claim under
DISPOSITION
For the reasons stated above, we find that the trial court properly granted the District‘s motion for nonsuit and entered judgment for the District. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
Kennard, J., Werdegar, J., and Brown, J., concurred.
I
Plaintiff Frederick Hoff, a nonstudent, was injured across the street from a public high school when he was struck by a car driven by Jason Lozano, a student exiting the school parking lot at Vacaville High School. Lozano, a licensed driver, lost control of his car as he drove out of the campus overflow parking lot onto West Monte Vista Avenue and struck Hoff, who was on the sidewalk across the street from the school, causing serious injuries. There was no adult supervisor monitoring the flow of traffic from the lot.
We granted review to address the legal question whether the school district could be held liable for such injury, based on the duty of teachers and other certified employees of a school district to supervise students in their care. I conclude that the answer is no. Although school district employees are obligated to supervise student conduct on school premises during the school day, they do not owe a duty to the general public to monitor student driving to or from school. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which held to the contrary.
II
Whether a duty of care exists in a particular case is a question of law. (Rodriguez v. Inglewood Unified School Dist. (1986) 186 Cal.App.3d 707, 712 [230 Cal.Rptr. 823].) Accordingly, we review the Court of Appeal‘s decision on this point under an independent review standard. Because this matter is before us on review of a nonsuit, we must accept as true all facts asserted in Hoff‘s opening statement and indulge every legitimate inference that may be drawn therefrom. (Abeyta v. Superior Court (1993) 17 Cal.App.4th 1037, 1041 [21 Cal.Rptr.2d 680].)
Our courts follow a logical sequence of inquiry in determining whether a public entity may be liable for negligence in tort. At the threshold, it must be established that the public entity owed an affirmative duty of care under the circumstances and that there was a statutory basis for liability. [I]n California, all government tort liability must be based on statute. (Rodriguez v. Inglewood Unified School Dist., supra, 186 Cal.App.3d at p. 716,
Only if these points are answered in the affirmative does the question of governmental immunity arise. Conceptually the question of the applicability of a statutory immunity does not even arise until it is determined that a defendant otherwise owes a duty of care to the plaintiff and thus would be liable in the absence of such immunity. (Davidson v. City of Westminster (1982) 32 Cal.3d 197, 201-202 [185 Cal.Rptr. 252, 649 P.2d 894]; see also Creason v. Department of Health Services (1998) 18 Cal.4th 623, 630 [76 Cal.Rptr.2d 489, 957 P.2d 1323] [Analytically, although the issues are somewhat related, the question of possible statutory liability for breach of a mandatory duty ordinarily should precede the question of statutory immunity.]; Rodriguez v. Inglewood Unified School Dist., supra, 186 Cal.App.3d at p. 723 [Immunity is the third prong in a governmental tort action analysis, but need not be reached where the cause of actiоn fails for want of statutory liability.].)
Under
This case fails at the threshold. Vacaville Unified School District (District) was not liable, either directly or vicariously, to Hoff.
The Court of Appeal concluded that the existing statutory and common law duty of teachers and school employees to supervise their students for their safety also runs to nonstudents such as Hoff. It erred thereby.
a
In California, courts have interpreted statutory and constitutional law to impose a duty on the employees of a school district to supervise students for the protection of students.
While school districts and their employees have never been considered insurers of the physical safety of students, California law has long imposed on school authorities a duty to ‘supervise at all times the conduct of the children on the school grounds and to enforce those rules and regulations necessary to their protеction. [Citations.]’ [Citations.] The standard of care imposed upon school personnel in carrying out this duty to supervise is identical to that required in the performance of their other duties. This uniform standard to which they are held is that degree of care ‘which a person of ordinary prudence, charged with [comparable] duties, would exercise under the same circumstances.’ [Citations.] Either a total lack of supervision [citation] or ineffective supervision [citation] may constitute a lack of ordinary care on the part of those responsible for student supervision. Under
Although
A duty to supervise students has also been inferred from
The foregoing provisions primarily describe a duty to protect students entrusted to the care of a school, which may involve controlling the conduct of third persons, presumably including other students, so as to avoid injury to those in their charge. Thus,
The decisions addressing the school district‘s liability for a breach of the duty to supervise students for their protection rely, for the most part, on
The decisions in point have consistently described the statutory duty of school authorities toward their students as, essentially, a duty of supervision for the purpose of protecting them from injury. Thus, in Dailey, supra, 2 Cal.3d at page 748, we held that a school district was liable for the failure of school authorities to supervise students who were engaged in a slap fight during recess. We explained: Supervision during recess and lunch periods is required, in part, so that discipline may be maintained and student conduct regulated. Such regulation is necessary precisely because of the commonly known tendency of students to engage in aggressive and impulsive behavior which exposes them and their peers to the risk of serious physical harm. (Ibid., fn. omitted.) One of the earliest cases in point explains: We assume that the purpose of the law requiring supervision of pupils . . . is to regulate their conduct so as to prevent disorderly and dangerous practices which are likely to result in physical injury to immature scholars under their custody. (Forgnone v. Salvadore U. E. School Dist., supra, 41 Cal.App.2d at p. 426 [school district liable for breach of duty to protect a student injured when her arm was twisted by another student]; accord, Charonnat v. S. F. Unified Sch. Dist., supra, 56 Cal.App.2d 840, 844; see also, e.g., Lucas v. Fresno Unified School Dist. (1993) 14 Cal.App.4th 866, 871-872 [18 Cal.Rptr.2d 79]
To be sure, all of the foregoing cases involved injury to a student, and therefore did not require consideration whether the duty to supervise extended to protect nonstudents. Significantly, however, the parties point to no California case that has held that
Also significantly, although school authorities, in supervising students, act in loco parentis, no statutory provision purports to make them vicariously liable for the misconduct of students. It is, rather, the actual parents who may bear such statutory liability. Thus,
In accordance with my understanding of these provisions, I would reject Hoff‘s claim that the District may be subject to liability based on the duty of its employees under
b
Several decisions by our courts refer to a duty to supervise students based on the common law special relationship bеtween schools and their students. For instance, Searcy v. Hemet Unified School Dist. (1986) 177 Cal.App.3d 792, 804 [223 Cal.Rptr. 206] states that [t]he special relationship doctrine may serve as the basis for . . . the long-established duty of schools to supervise students in their charge and protect them against harm from others on school premises during the school day. (See also Leger v. Stockton Unified School Dist. (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 1448, 1459 [249 Cal.Rptr. 688] [referring to school district‘s special relation[ship] with [student] upon which a duty of care may be founded]; Rodriguez v. Inglewood Unified School Dist., supra, 186 Cal.App.3d at p. 715 [concluding that a special relationship is formed between a school district and its students so as to impose an affirmative duty on the district to take all reasonable steps to protect its students]; Bartell v. Palos Verdes Peninsula Sch. Dist. (1978) 83 Cal.App.3d 492, 499 [147 Cal.Rptr. 898] [holding that the established duty of a school district to supervise its playgrounds is therefore grounded upon the special relationship between the school and its attending students].)
But those decisions suggest that the common law duty to supervise students should be construed, in this context, as no broader than is otherwise provided by the statutes that have codified the obligation of school authorities to students entrusted to their care. Thus, Bartell v. Palos Verdes Peninsula School Dist., supra, 83 Cal.App.3d at page 499, citing the predecessor to
Hoff cites Hoyem v. Manhattan Beach City Sch. Dist. (1978) 22 Cal.3d 508 [150 Cal.Rptr. 1, 585 P.2d 851], as an example of a decision using general tort law principles to expand the statutory duty of a school district to supervise. His point is unavailing. Hoyem conсluded that a school district owed a duty to supervise a 10-year-old student who, after leaving campus without permission during school hours, was injured several blocks away when he was hit by a motorcycle. The school district‘s failure to supervise the student on campus was held to be the proximate cause of his injury off campus. Hoyem says nothing about a school district‘s duty to supervise a student to prevent injury to a nonstudent.
IV
The Court of Appeal, relying on our decision in Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California (1976) 17 Cal.3d 425 [131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334, 83 A.L.R.3d 1166] concluded that, apart from existing statutory and common law requirements, policy considerations weigh in favor of judicially recognizing a general duty on the part of school employees to supervise students for the protection of nonstudents under the facts presented. I disagree.
Observing that legal duties are merely conclusory expressions that, in cases of a particular type, liability should be imposed for damage done (Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 434), we analyzed whether the special relationship between a psychotherapist and patient required imposition of a duty of protection to third parties, as an exception to the general principle that a person owes no duty to control the conduct of another or to warn those endangered thereby. (Id. at p. 435.) In doing so, we noted as well the factors considered in Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 113 [70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561, 32 A.L.R.3d 496]: ‘the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant‘s conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant‘s conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.’ (Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 434.)
In Rowland, the court considered these factors in determining whether to formulate an exception to an existing duty. (Rowland v. Christian, supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 113.) As in Tarasoff, however, they are now commonly identified as the balance of considerations for creating a new basis of liability in particular circumstances. Here the Court of Appeal imposed a duty on school employees based on its finding of a special relationship and a determination that the Rowland factors justified the result.
I find no such duty under the facts of this case. The critical consideration in finding a special relationship in Tarasoff was the fact that the defendant psychotherapists had actual knowledge of dangers emanating from the[ir] patient‘s illness. (Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, supra, 17 Cal.3d at p. 436; see id. at p. 451 (conc. and dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).) In this case, the record establishes that school employees had no knowledge of reckless driving or other misconduct by Lozano. Absent such knowledge, the key basis for imposing liability fails.
Additionally, in Thompson v. County of Alameda (1980) 27 Cal.3d 741, 751 [167 Cal.Rptr. 70, 614 P.2d 728, 12 A.L.R.4th 701]), we reiterated that any Tarasoff special relationship duty required a finding that the defendant‘s conduct placed the specific plaintiff in a position of clearly foreseeable danger. Here, Hoff was a member of the general public who happened to be walking on a public sidewalk when Lozano drove out of the overflow parking lot and lost control of his car. Unlike members of the general public, in Tarasoff and Johnson v. State of California (1968) 69 Cal.2d 782 [73 Cal.Rptr. 240, 447 P.2d 352] the potential victims were specially known and designated individuals. (Thompson v. County of Alameda, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 755.)
From the foregoing, it is clear that the special relationship theory of liability fails at the outset. Thus, there is no need to address the Rowland factors. I therefore express no opinion as to the existence or scope of a
The majority reach a similar result, but do so based on an analogy to the duties arising from the unique special relationship between a parent and child. Certainly the duty of school employees should be no greater in scope than that owed by parents. Neither the Court of Appeal nor Hoff has so argued. Nor, as I have stated, should it be greater in scope than that owed by the defendants in Tarasoff or Thompson. Unlike the majority, however, I would go no further. I thus reject the suggestion, implicit in the majority opinion, that a school employee‘s duty to supervise a student is analogous to a parent‘s duty to control a child with regard to third persons. As the majority observe, a parent is liable under the common law if he or she knew or should have known, e.g., based on past misconduct, that it was necessary to control the child and failed to exercise due care to do so. I strongly disagree with the implication that school districts could or should be subject to liability when a school employeе knew or should have known of a child‘s tendencies to misbehavior that might injure a nonstudent in this context. None of our precedents supports such a broad expansion of potential tort liability for school districts and their employees. At the very least, the majority‘s analysis begs the question whether the District would be potentially liable for any future accidents involving Lozano or another student using the parking lots at Vacaville High School.
V
For the foregoing reasons, I conclude that no duty of care extended to Hoff and that, therefore, the District could not be deemed liable, either directly or vicariously, for the conduct of its students. Based on the facts presented in opening argument, nonsuit was properly granted. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
George, C. J., and Baxter, J., concurred.