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R.W. v. Manzek12/9/2003
and its superintendent finding the first, second and fourth elements were absent. With regard to the first element, the District Court concluded the school and its superintendent did not place L.W. in danger "by merely allowing a fundraiser to take place in her school" but rather "the catalysts for [L.W.'s] injuries were her mother's unforeseeable act of permitting [L.W.] to walk a mile alone to a friend's house, and [L.W.'s] unforeseeable act of walking down a dirt road, talking to a stranger and entering the stranger's house, despite the apparent warnings of her parents not to approach strangers to sell fundraising products." Id., at 15. It found Fleming's actions were too attenuated from the district and its superintendent's conduct to impose liability. Id. As to the second element, the court concluded the district and its superintendent did not act in willful disregard of L.W.'s safety since they could not have been aware and could not have foreseen the danger posed by Fleming. Id., at 16.
The trial court found the District Court's reasoning to be "logical and persuasive," and applied it in dismissing appellants' claims. See, Trial Court Opinion, Martin, P.J., 7/31/02, at 4. Absent foreseeability, the trial court reasoned, appellants could not state a valid cause of action against appellees. Id.
Appellants argue the district court's analysis is irrelevant to appellants' state law negligence claims and the trial court erred in applying it. They say the district court found the affirmative acts of the district and its superintendent consisted solely of allowing school property to be used for a fundraising meeting and those acts were too attenuated from Fleming's assault to satisfy the proximate cause element of a state-created danger theory. Further, they assert that the district court did not examine the conduct of each of the appellees or the relationship of those acts to the harm suffered by L.W.
They also argue the trial court erred in failing to distinguish foreseeability with regard to "proximate cause" v. foreseeability with regard to "duty of care." " foreseeability analysis in a federal statecreated danger civil rights cause of action is for purposes of determining whether proximate cause exists between the affirmative acts of the state actor that created the danger to the plaintiff, and the harm that ultimately befell the plaintiff," whereas "a foreseeability analysis in a state-law negligence cause of actionà , is for purposes of determining the nature and scope of the duty of care owed by the defendants to the plaintiff." Appellants' brief at 15 (emphasis supplied). In a state law negligence cause of action, they argue the court must only determine if the specific harm suffered by the plaintiff was of a type includable in a more general, foreseeable, broad class of risks. They claim appellees owed L.W. a duty of care because they created a "special relationship" with her when they recruited her for the fundraiser from which they directly derived profit and the harm that befell L.W. while participating in the fundraiser, fell within a foreseeable, general, broad class of risks.
Appellants cited no authority for its contention that foreseeability in a state-created danger analysis relates to proximate cause. They simply state it is clear from their own analysis of Kneipp v. Tedder, 95 F.3d 1199 (3d Cir. 1996) and Morse v. Lower Merion School District, 132 F.3d 902 (3d Cir. 1997). Appellants' brief at 18. Appellants specifically cite the following excerpt from Kneipp in which the court found "based on the facts and inferences most favorable to the legal guardians, a reasonable jury could find that the harm likely to befall Samantha if sep
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