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STEVENS v. DES MOINES SCHOOL DIST.2/22/1995
ant a limitation of liability through the expedient of concluding, as a matter of law, that a negligent failure to supervise was not the proximate cause of the injury. . . . The events which occurred in the instant case are precisely what one would expect from unsupervised adolescents. Of course, it is not necessary that the exact injuries which occurred have been foreseeable; it is enough that "a reasonably prudent person would foresee that injuries of the same general type would be likely to occur in the absence of adequate safeguards."
Id. at 750-51, 470 P.2d at 365-66, 87 Cal.Rptr. at 381-82 (citations omitted) (footnote omitted).
The problem with the superseding cause defense in school supervision cases is succinctly stated in Doe v. Durtschi, 110 Idaho 466, 716 P.2d 1238 (1986). In this case, a student had been sexually assaulted by a faculty member. In the suit against the school, the school alleged that the intervening act of the teacher was a superseding cause of the injury . The court stated:
The concept of supervening causation is inapplicable, under the allegations of the present case. [The teacher's] actions were the foreseeable result of the school district's alleged failure to exercise due care to protect its students. The very risk which constituted the district's negligence was the probability that such actions might occur.
It is clearly unsound to afford immunity to a negligent defendant because the intervening force, the very anticipation of which made his conduct negligent, has brought about the expected harm.
Id. at 471, 716 P.2d at 1243 (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 449) (emphasis added).
The court in that case continued:
The fact that the foreseeable danger was from intentional or criminal misconduct is irrelevant; the school district had a statutory duty to make reasonable efforts to protect its students from such danger. A breach of that duty constitutes negligence. Under the allegations of the present case, [the teacher's] actions would not constitute a supervening cause, and the school district's tortious conduct would not arise out of assault and battery. Rather, the roots of the assault and battery would be in the district's own negligence.
Durtschi, 110 Idaho at 472, 716 P.2d at 1244.
Analogous cases involving criminal acts by outsiders (as opposed to those by fellow students) provide a more compelling argument for a superseding cause defense because of the reduced level of foreseeability by the defendants. Nevertheless, courts have quite uniformly rejected the superseding cause argument.
In a case involving criminal conduct in a department store, the store contended that the intervening act of a criminal was the superseding cause of the plaintiffs injuries. The court rejected the argument because,
f the likelihood that a third person may act in a particular manner is . . . one of the hazards which makes the actor negligent, such an act whether innocent, negligent, intentionally tortious, or criminal does not prevent the actor from being liable for harm caused thereby. [528 NW2d Page 121]
Passovoy v. Nordstrom, Inc., 52 Wn. App. 166, 174, 758 P.2d 524, 529 (1988) (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 449).
In Sharp v. W.H. Moore, Inc., 118 Idaho 297, 796 P.2d 506 (1990), a worker was raped in an office building and claimed insufficient security. The court noted that the
efendants . . . argue that the occurrence of criminal activity is an intervening, superseding force that breaks the chain of causation potentially binding defendants to liability. While this is a superficially pleasi
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