Page 1
Court of Appeal:
School District Might Be Liable for After-Hours Attack
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has reversed a summary judgment in favor of a school district in an action brought on behalf of a then-minor who was stabbed by an 18-year-old male as he sped by her on rollerblades as she headed, after-hours, to the campus parking lot at her high school.
Justice Eileen C. Moore authored the opinion, filed Wednesday and made public on Thursday. It reverses a determination by Orange Superior Court Judge Richard Y. Lee that the Huntington Beach Union High School District owed no special duty in 2018 to then-10th grader Cierra Achay, and that even if it did have such a duty, no breach of it was the cause of the harm to her.
Attacker Michael Anthony Meer was a student at another high school when he punctured Achay.
The victim was a member of the track team.
Practice ended early on the day when the attack took place; Achay and a friend, Leslie Sotelo, went to a Starbuck’s location; they headed back to the school with the immediate purpose of Achay picking up her books from her locker; on the way, they encountered Meer who struck them as weird and they sensed fear; they telephoned a friend, Destiny Rios, who joined them and they bolted the locker room door. But they then forayed toward the parking lot where Sotelo’s mother was scheduled to pick up her daughter and Achay and the lightning-speed assault occurred.
No Duty
Lee noted that after school hours, supervisors were present at Edison High School only in connection with scheduled events and the campus, after 2:30 p.m., was open, like a park, to any member of the public. In his order granting summary judgment, the judge said:
“Indeed, the evidence shows that when the incident occurred, Plaintiff was no longer on campus during school hours or during a school-related activity. Thus, Defendant owed Plaintiff no duty.”
Rejecting that reasoning, Moore declared:
“We disagree. At the time of the stabbing, Achay was on campus to retrieve her books from an open locker room after her track practice and another sports team was still practicing nearby. Achay’s brief departure from school is a red herring.”
The swim team was in practice in the area of the swimming pool. There was no indication by Moore that the supervisorial personnel, if any, had the area between the locker room and the parking lot in sight during the aquatic practice.
On Campus
Moore wrote:
“[W]e hold the District owed Achay a duty of care because she was stabbed while she was on campus during ‘school-related or encouraged functions’ (after school sports)….Thus, under a de novo standard of review, we overrule the contrary finding of the trial court.”
She added that “we find it somewhat predicable that track and field students such as Achay would still be on campus to be picked up at 6:00 p.m., which was about 30 minutes after her track practice normally ended.”
The justice spelled out:
“We are certainly not finding that the District breached its duty (that is left to the trier of fact). Nor are we addressing other instances involving members of the public, with whom a school district generally has no special relationship, and therefore ordinarily owes no duty of care.”
In holding that causation of harm by the district was not shown, Lee said:
“Here, Defendant argues that even if there were a duty of care, there is no proximate causal connection between the inadequacy of its supervision, if any, and the incident. This is because the incident occurred very quickly. Meer approached on roller blades from behind Plaintiff, and within five seconds she was struck as he passed her at running speed….
“Given the evidence presented, the Court cannot assume that more security would have prevented the incident from occurring.”
Again disagreeing, Moore set forth:
“But these are plainly triable issues of material fact. Certainly, such factual questions would arise even if Achay had been stabbed during one of her high school classes. Further, the District’s arguments in this regard seem to ignore the fact that Achay and her friends were fearful of Meer prior to the stabbing. Indeed, the girls were concerned enough to call a friend for help, and to enlist the aid of another student in the parking lot; therefore, it is hard to imagine that they wouldn’t have searched out security personnel if they had been present on the campus. Moreover, given that Meer was not an Edison student, it is a reasonable inference that had campus supervisors been present they would have intervened or taken some precautionary measures to prevent the stabbing.”
The case is Achay v. Huntington Beach Union High School District, 2022 S.O.S. 2849.
Copyright 2022, Metropolitan News Company