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Doe Parents No. 1 v. State11/27/2002
to the foreseeability of the injuries suffered by the plaintiffs. In this vein, the DOE contends that,
ccording to the circuit court, the DOE could foresee that:
(1) [Schlosser's] interview of [Melony and Nicole] as potential witnesses to the assault on A.C. would result in statements by the girls that they too were molested;
(2) either the girls nor the military police, in the course of their investigation, would directly inform the parents of the sexual assaults;
(3) [Schlosser's] specific inquiry into the nature of Norton's assaults upon Melony and Nichole would exacerbate their emotional distress to such an extent that the girls could never be effective witnesses against Norton in a subsequent criminal trial;
(4) s a result, two juries would not find [Melony's and Nicole's] allegations credible; and
(5) Norton would be acquitted, for a second time, of sexual assault charges.
The DOE urges us to hold that such harms were not reasonably foreseeable and, therefore, should not predicate the imposition of any "new duties" upon it. Finally, the DOE asserts that, in any event, mere foreseeability of the harm, standing alone, is not a sufficient basis upon which to predicate the imposition of a duty of care.
In our view, the circuit court was correct in concluding that the DOE's duty ran, not only to Melony and Nicole, but to their respective parents, because it was reasonably foreseeable that both the students and their parents would suffer emotional distress in the event that Norton molested the students. Nor do we construe the circuit court's conclusions regarding the duty of care that the DOE owed to the plaintiffs as imposing anything "new" upon the DOE. Rather, as we explain below, our case law supports the circuit court's determination that the DOE, standing in loco parentis, owes students and their parents a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent reasonably foreseeabe harms to its students.
In Miller, this court held that the State "has a duty of reasonably supervising the public school students of Hawaii during their required attendance and presence at school and while the students are leaving school immediately after the school day is over." 56 Haw. at 340, 536 P.2d at 1199 (citing Titus v. Lindberg, 228 A.2d 65, 68 (N.J. 1967)). The duty of "reasonable supervision entails general supervision of students, unless specific needs, or a dangerous or likely to be dangerous situation calls for specific supervision." Id. Miller, a student at a public intermediate school, was struck in her left eye with a rock thrown by Yoshimoto, one of her fellow students, while walking across the school campus on her way home shortly after classes had been dismissed for the day. Id. at 333-37, 536 P.2d at 1196-98. As a result, Miller's left eye had to be replaced with an artificial eye. Id. at 337, 536 P.2d at 1198. Miller sued, inter alia, the State, claiming that the school's administrators and teachers had been negligent in supervising students at the time of the incident. Id. at 333, 536 P.2d at 1196. The trial court entered judgment in favor of the State, and Miller appealed. Id.
On appeal, this court held that rules and regulations that the DOE had adopted "provid the necessary guidelines and requirements for the personnel of the State educational system to perform its supervisory duties." Id. at 340, 536 P.2d at 1199. We noted that numerous school administrators and teachers had been stationed around the school at the time of Miller's injury for the purpose of supervising the students' departure for the day, but that no one had been specifically assigned to supervise the area of the sch
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