STEPHENSON v. CITY OF NEW YORK
The issue before us is whether NYC schools have a duty to inform parents when their child is involved in a school fight.
The Facts: Here, the school was aware of a disagreement between two students. On October 22, 2003, Stephenson, a student at Middle School 113 in the Bronx, and Lorenzo McDonald, a fellow student, had a fistfight on the school grounds. Neither boy was significantly injured. The school directed Stephenson to go straight home so that he would not encounter McDonald again that day. Upon arriving at home, Stephenson did not tell his mother or grandmother, with whom he lived, about the fight with McDonald. The next day, Stephenson was on school grounds when he encountered McDonald, who told Stephenson he was “going to get [Stephenson] jumped.” Again, Stephenson did not tell his mother or grandmother about this threat; nor did he report it to school authorities.
Before school began on the morning of October 24, Stephenson exited a subway station approximately two blocks from the school and saw McDonald across the street. Stephenson entered a store, from which three accomplices of McDonald pulled Stephenson outside to the street where McDonald was waiting. While two accomplices held Stephenson’s hands behind his back, McDonald and the third accomplice repeatedly punched Stephenson in the face for several minutes and fractured his jaw in two places.
Holding: The court acknowledged that a school normally has no duty of care to a student injured off school grounds (see e.g. Norton v Canandaigua City School Dist., 208 A.D.2d 282, 285 [1995], lv denied 85 N.Y.2d 812 [1995]), but found that, while Stephenson was in the school’s custody on October 22, the school breached its duty to notify his mother about the fistfight. By breaching this duty, the court concluded, the school “failed to prevent a further escalation of the incident” and accordingly was liable for Stephenson’s injuries.