The Law of Higher Education. William A. Kaplin
the recruit and the truck driver. Both injured parties sued the college.
A jury awarded the injured recruit $2.26 million against the college and the estate of the driver. On appeal, the college argued that it was not responsible for the actions of the student driver. The court, noting that the student's car was uninsured and unregistered and that the student had no valid driver's license, ruled that “the Butler Community College defendants could have discovered [the driver's] unfitness for the task had any investigation been conducted” (771 F. Supp. at 1128). The college had policies requiring students driving on the college's behalf to be licensed; the college's failure to follow its policies and its failure to ascertain whether the student was qualified to undertake the responsibility it assigned him resulted in the court's determination that, for purposes of respondeat superior liability, the student was a “gratuitous employee” of the college.
Despite the outcome in the Butler Community College case, colleges are usually not responsible for the torts of students. For example, in Gehling v. St. George's University School of Medicine, 705 F. Supp. 761 (E.D.N.Y. 1989), affirmed without opinion, 891 F.2d 277 (2d Cir. 1989), medical students who treated a colleague after he collapsed in a road race did not expose the medical school to malpractice liability; the court ruled that they had not acted as agents of the school. The outcome might have been different, however, if the medical students had been involved in an athletic event sponsored by the medical school.
An emerging area of potential negligence liability for colleges, and their staffs, is computer security. For example, in addition to potential liability for computer usages that violate federal statutes or the First Amendment, institutions may become liable for negligent loss or disclosure of confidential electronic records, negligent supervision of employees who use electronic information for unlawful purposes, negligent failures to keep networks secure from outsiders who gain access for unlawful purposes, or negligent transmission of data that intrudes upon privacy interests of students, faculty, staff, or outsiders.
3.2.2.2 Premises liability. These claims involve injuries to students or other invitees who allege that a college or university breached its duty as a landlord or landowner to maintain reasonably safe buildings (classrooms, residence halls, sports facilities, performing arts centers) and land (parking lots, athletics field, pathway, sidewalks). If a “dangerous” condition is obvious, there is no duty to warn an invitee of potential danger. For example, in Shimer v. Bowling Green State University, 708 N.E.2d 305 (Ohio Ct. Cl. 1999), a student who fell into an open orchestra pit sued the college for the injuries she sustained. The court found for the college, stating that the plaintiff, who had been working on a theater production and was familiar with the stage and the orchestra pit's location, was negligent in not using care to avoid falling into the pit.
In a more typical premises liability case, on move-in day, a parent of a student at Louisiana Tech University slipped on a mat at the entry to a university dormitory, after a university employee allegedly warned her of the dangers of wearing flip-flops while moving in her son on a rainy day. A state court of appeals held that the lower court's award of summary judgment to the university defendant was not appropriate, as genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether the university should have been aware of the hazard caused by rainwater on the floor near the entry to the dormitory during high-traffic time on a rainy day. Kadlec v. Louisiana Tech. Univ., 208 So.3d 992 (La. Ct. App. 2016).
Premises liability cases often turn on the defendant's knowledge of the presence of a dangerous condition. For example, in University of Texas v. Bellinghausen, No. 03-14-00749-CV, 2016 WL 462735 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016), a University of Texas at Austin student slipped and fell on a raised crack in the sidewalk, breaking his arm. He alleged that the university was negligent in allowing the sidewalk to become damaged, as well as for failing to ensure that its employees could reduce the damage and warn others about the dangerous condition. The latter arguments were brought because a university employee allegedly saw the student fall earlier in the same area. Dismissing the claim, the Texas Court of Appeals concluded that it would be speculation that the university had actual knowledge about the dangerous condition that would establish a duty to warn. See also Sampson v. University of Texas, 500 S.W.3d 380 (Tex. 2016), in which the Texas Supreme Court determined that a professor's tripping over an extension cord at a tailgate hosted by the law school did not constitute actual knowledge by the university of a dangerous condition or actual knowledge of a potential danger. See also Almarante v. Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Inc., 921 So.2d 703 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2006), where the court ruled that a student injured while crossing a highway that divided the college's campus stated a negligence claim against the college.
The majority rule that landowners are liable only for those injuries on their property that are foreseeable remains intact, but courts are differing sharply on what injuries they view as foreseeable. For example, in Pitre v. Louisiana Tech University, 655 So.2d 659 (La. Ct. App. 1995), reversed, 673 So.2d 585 (La. 1996), the intermediate appellate court had found the university liable for injuries to a student who was paralyzed during a sledding accident. When a rare snowstorm blanketed the university's campus, the administration issued a written warning to its students, placing it on each student's bed, urging them to use good judgment and to avoid sledding in dangerous areas. Pitre and two classmates used a trash can lid as a sled and rode it down a hill; Pitre struck the base of a light pole in a university parking lot. The appellate court ruled that the university had a duty to prevent unreasonably unsafe student activities and viewed the written warning as an encouragement to engage in sledding. Although the court acknowledged that Pitre's own behavior contributed to his injuries, it found the university 25 percent liable.
The Supreme Court of Louisiana reversed, reasoning that the danger encountered by Pitre and his friends was obvious to a reasonably careful invitee. The court stated that, since sledding is not inherently dangerous, the university could not foresee that Pitre would select a location unsuitable for sledding; furthermore, said the court, it was reasonable for the university to install light poles as a safety mechanism. The court ruled that the university bore no liability for the plaintiff's injuries.
Premises liability claims may also arise when an invitee misuses a college or university building or other property of an institution, but that misuse is claimed to be foreseeable. For example, in Robertson v. State of Louisiana, 747 So.2d 1276 (La. Ct. App. 1999), parents of a 23-year-old senior student sued Louisiana Tech University for negligence after their son died from falling from the roof of a campus building. The university had built a roof over its swimming pool; the roof, whose apex was 56 feet high, extended to within several feet of the ground. The son had climbed onto the roof after spending the evening drinking with friends. There had been several earlier incidents of students climbing on the roof; in all cases the students were intoxicated, and in two cases the students had been seriously injured. The parents of the student who died claimed that, because of these earlier climbing incidents, the injury to their son was foreseeable, and the university should have erected some form of barrier to prevent students from climbing onto the roof. Despite the university's knowledge of the earlier climbing incidents, and testimony that a modest investment in shrubbery would likely have prevented future climbing expeditions, the court ruled that the roof was not unreasonably dangerous, that the danger of falling off the roof was obvious, and therefore that the university owed no duty to prevent the student from climbing onto the roof. For a case involving a trespasser's death after climbing a cliff on college property, in which the court entered summary judgment for the college, see Blust v. Berea College, 431 F. Supp. 2d 703 (E.D. Ky. 2006). And for an application of the assumption of risk doctrine in a case in which a student sued New York University when he was injured during a Jell-O wrestling event in a residence hall courtyard, see Wisnia v. New York University, 239 N.Y.L.J. 24 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. January 23, 2008).
Colleges and universities in Florida have gained some protection from liability in cases such as Nicholson. The legislature of Florida has enacted a law creating a potential bar to recovery in a negligence lawsuit if the plaintiff is voluntarily intoxicated by drugs or alcohol and the court determines that the plaintiff is the primary cause of his or her injuries (Fla. Stat. Ann. § 768.075 (West 2011)). The statute also exempts property