Schools Owe No Legal Duty “to Former Students to Investigate Allegations of Past Abuse,”

From last Monday’s decision by Magistrate Judge Mark Dinsmore (S.D. Ind.) in Kimberlin v. Metro. School Dist. of Wash. Township Schools refusing to allow Brett Kimberlin to add an extra claim to his pending lawsuit (see here for more on the original claims):

[Plaintiff] claims Defendants failed to adequately respond to a letter he sent Dr. Woodson in 2024 accusing a now-deceased schoolteacher of sexually abusing him while he was a middle school student in the 1960s. The teacher’s employment with the school ended in 1969, and Plaintiff left the state of Indiana in 1978. Plaintiff currently resides in the state of Maryland, and he does not allege to have any present affiliation with the School District, aside from sending his letter to Dr. Woodson in 2024.

The complaint alleges that rather than investigate his claims, as is required by the School District’s own policies, Dr. Woodson and others engaged in an effort to dismiss and cover up his allegations. Based on these allegations, the complaint asserts claims against Defendants under Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause….

[T]he proposed amended complaint asserts an additional claim against Dr. Woodson for negligence. The negligence claim alleges that Dr. Woodson failed to comply with Indiana’s mandatory reporting statutes, which require school officials and others to immediately report allegations of child abuse to law enforcement. It also alleges that Dr. Woodson failed to follow the School District’s own policies with respect to allegations of child abuse and that she tried to cover up Plaintiff’s allegations….

There is a consistent line of cases holding that Indiana’s mandatory reporting statutes do not provide a private right of action….

To the extent Plaintiff attempts to assert a negligence claim against Dr. Woodson for failing to comply with the School District’s policies concerning reports of child abuse, that attempt is also futile because the proposed amended complaint does not create a reasonable inference that Dr. Woodson owed Plaintiff a duty of care in 2024 to investigate his allegations of abuse occurring in the 1960s. “Indiana recognizes a duty on the part of school personnel to exercise ordinary and reasonable care for the safety of their students.”

But … the proposed amended complaint does not support a reasonable inference that Dr. Woodson owed Plaintiff this duty when he sent his letter in 2024 because he was not a student at that time and no students were in danger of abuse from the now-deceased accused schoolteacher[.] By the time he sent his letter, Plaintiff had not been enrolled in the School District for approximately 50 years, and Dr. Woodson’s alleged conduct could not have endangered the safety of the School District’s students. Plaintiff’s reply does not address this argument, and neither his motion to amend nor his proposed amended complaint supports a theory that school districts or their personnel owe a duty of care to former students to investigate allegations of past abuse….

Jonathan Lamont Mayes (Bose McKinney & Evans, LLP) represents defendants.