Case Number: SC108504    Hearing Date: September 09, 2014    Dept: K

Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment is denied.

Defendant had a duty to warn Plaintiff or or to take reasonable steps to prevent the threat Damon Thompson posed to the Plaintiff.

There is no liability for the criminal conduct of a third party, absent a special relationship between the Plaintiff and the Defendant. See Crow v. State of California (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 192, 208.

There was a special relationship between Plaintiff and the University:
–Plaintiff was injured in a classroom laboratory under the supervision of a teaching assistant who was employed by the University.
–The Teaching Assistant, the Professor, Dean Porter and Karen Minero who had overseen Thompson’s case as part of the CARS team, all knew that Thompson had mental health issues and identified Plaintiff as one of the students who was the focus of his anger.
–Dean Porter and Karen Minero were aware of and/or had access to all the information collected on Thompson which established a serious threat of physical violence to all persons Thompson believed were insulting him, including the Plaintiff.

Defendants rely on Ochoa v. California State University (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 1300, 1306, Tanja H. v. Regents (1991) 228 Cal.App.3d 434 and the Crowe case for the general proposition that a university never owes a duty to protect its adult students from criminal acts and that no special relationship exits that would support imposition of such a duty. These cases involve students who were attacked by other students in the dorm or at an athletic event.

Plaintiff’s case does not fit perfectly into applicable case law. But, the holding in Avila v. Citrus Community College District (2006) 38 Cal.4th 148, 158 is helpful. “Separate and apart from the body of law governing premises liability claims, another body of law establishes that public schools and universities owe certain nonproperty-based duties to their students. Public schools have a duty to supervise student. Although with the demise of the loco parentis doctrine, college and universities do not owe similarly broad duties of supervision to all their students, that development has not limited the recognition that colleges and universities owe special duties to their athletes when conducting athletic practices and games.”

Plaintiff was attacked in an organic chemistry lab. Her ability to obtain a degree from Defendant was contingent upon her taking and satisfactorily completing this class.

Even without finding a special relationship based on Plaintiff’s status as a student in Defendant’s classroom and the information known by Defendant concerning Thompson, the law recognizes a special relationship based on Plaintiff’s status as Defendant’s business invitee. Peterson v. San Francisco Community College District (1984) 36 Cal.3d 799, 806.

There is a duty to protect a business invitee from foreseeable third party criminal acts. See Ericson v. Federal Express (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 1291, 1300.

Also, Defendant may have voluntarily assumed the duty. Defendant worked with Thompson by overseeing his psychological treatment, accommodating his disability, encouraging him to take medication and seek counseling, and intervening in his housing situation. Does their interaction create an assumption of a duty?

Triable issue: Did Defendant breach its duty when it failed to inform Plaintiff that Thompson had identified her as a target of his anger and/or failed to place her into a different lab?

The immunity statutes do not apply here.