Glenn ex rel. Glenn v. Grant Parish School Board

49 So. 3d 1049, 10 La.App. 3 Cir. 0436, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 1480, 2010 WL 4320480
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 3, 2010
DocketNo. 10-0436
StatusPublished

This text of 49 So. 3d 1049 (Glenn ex rel. Glenn v. Grant Parish School Board) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Glenn ex rel. Glenn v. Grant Parish School Board, 49 So. 3d 1049, 10 La.App. 3 Cir. 0436, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 1480, 2010 WL 4320480 (La. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

PETERS, J.

11 The plaintiff in this matter, James A. Glenn, appeals the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Grant Parish School Board dismissing it from this litigation. For the following reasons, we affirm the trial court judgment.

This litigation arises from an April 17, 2007 physical altercation on the Grant High School campus involving two minors who were students at the school — Shaq-uille Galberth and Mr. Glenn’s fifteen-year-old son, Cody M. Glenn. The alterca[1050]*1050tion resulted in significant injuries to Cody, and Mr. Glenn brought this suit against the Grant Parish School Board (School Board) and others1 to recover the damages his son sustained.2 After numerous other procedural filings, the School Board filed the motion for summary judgment that is the subject of this appeal. Following a September 15, 2009 hearing, the trial court granted the School Board’s request for relief and dismissed it as a party defendant. This appeal followed that judgment, and, in his single assignment of error, Mr. Glenn asserts that “[t]he trial court erred in failing to find that the School Board was liable, because it had actual notice of the harassment and did not document the wrongdoing or pass on the complaint to higher authority.”

Appellate review of a summary judgment is de novo, applying the same standard as the trial court. Smith v. Our Lady of the Lake Hosp., Inc., 93-2512 (La.7/5/94), 639 So.2d 730. Accordingly, we will review this matter de novo.

As a general principle, Louisiana law favors the summary judgment procedure as a vehicle by which the “just, speedy, and inexpensive” determination of an action |2may be achieved. La.Code Civ.P. art. 966(A)(2). The trial court is required to render summary judgment “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to material fact, and that mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” La.Code Civ.P. art. 966(B). In a summary judgment proceeding, the burden of persuasion remains always with the mover to show that no material issues of fact exist. La.Code Civ.P. art. 966(C)(2). That is to say, the mover must present supportive evidence that the motion for summary judgment should be granted. Hayes v. Autin, 96-287 (La.App. 3 Cir. 12/26/96), 685 So.2d 691, writ denied, 97-281 (La.3/14/97), 690 So.2d 41.

A fact is “material” when its existence or nonexistence may be essential to plaintiffs cause of action under the applicable theory of recovery. “[Fjacts are material if they potentially insure or preclude recovery, affect a litigant’s ultimate success, or determine the outcome of the legal dispute.” Simply put, a “material” fact is one that would matter on the trial on the merits. Any doubt as to a dispute regarding a material issue of fact must be resolved against granting the motion and in favor of a trial on the merits.

Smith, 639 So.2d at 751 (citations omitted).

In determining whether a fact is material, we must consider the substantive law governing the litigation. Davenport v. Albertson’s, Inc., 00-685 (La.App. 3 Cir. 12/6/00), 774 So.2d 340, writ denied, 01-73 (La.3/23/01), 788 So.2d 427.

This suit is based on negligence and questions of liability for negligent acts are evaluated using a duty-risk analysis. Daye v. Gen. Motors Corp., 97-1653 (La.9/9/98), 720 So.2d 654. Under this analysis, the “[p]laintiff must prove that the conduct in question was a cause-in-fact of the resulting harm, the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, the requisite duty was breached by the defendant and the risk of harm was within the scope of protection afforded by the duty breached.” Id. at 659. The plaintiffs failure to prove any of the elements of the duty-risk analy[1051]*1051sis must result in a determination of no liability. Lemann v. Essen Lane Daiquiris, Inc., 05-1095 (La.3/10/06), 923 So.2d 627. Cause-in-fact is a factual question to be determined by the fact finder. Benjamin ex rel. Benjamin v. Hous. Auth. of New Orleans, 04-1058 (La.12/1/04), 893 So.2d 1. If a plaintiff is successful in establishing the cause-in-fact element, he or she must next establish the existence and nature of the duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff. In the case of a school board, the duty owed a student is that of “reasonable supervision.” Wallmuth v. Rapides Parish Sch. Bd., 01-1779, 01-1780, p. 8 (La.4/3/02), 813 So.2d 341, 346. The reasonable supervision duty is analyzed by application of one of two Civil Code articles: La.Civ.Code art. 2315, which provides that “[e]very act whatever of man that causes damage to another obliges him by whose fault it happened to repair it,” and/or La.Civ.Code art. 2320, which provides that “[tjeachers and artisans are answerable for the damage caused by their scholars or apprentices, while under their superintendence” although only when the teacher “might have prevented the act which caused the damage,” yet did not do so. Although it reversed the ultimate decision reached by this court, our supreme court, in Wallmuth, 813 So.2d 341, adopted this court’s enunciation of the standard of liability for school boards under either La.Civ.Code art. 2315 or La.Civ.Code art. 2320 as being correct. This court had stated:

A school board, through its agents and teachers, owes a duty of reasonable supervision over students. La. Civ.Code art. 2320; Adams v. Caddo Parish School Bd., 25,370 (La.App. 2 Cir. 1/19/94), 631 So.2d 70, writ denied, 94,684 (La.4/29/94), 637 So.2d 466. The supervision required is reasonable, competent supervision appropriate to the age of the children and the attendant circumstances. Jackson v. Colvin, 98-182 (La.App. 3 Cir. 12/23/98), 732 So.2d 530, writ denied, 99-228 (La.3/19/99), 740 So.2d 117. This duty does not make the school board the ^insurer of the safety of the children. Id. Constant supervision of all students is not possible nor required for educators to discharge their duty to provide adequate supervision. Adams, 631 So.2d 70
Before liability can be imposed upon a school board for failure to adequately supervise the safety of students, there must be proof of negligence in providing supervision and also proof of a causal connection between the lack of supervision and the accident. Id. “Injury from horseplay between discerning students which, at some stage may pose an unreasonable risk of harm to the participants, does not automatically and of itself render the supervising authority liable.” Henix v. George, 465 So.2d 906, 910 (La.App. 2 Cir.1985). Furthermore, before a school board can be found to have breached the duty to adequately supervise the safety of students, the risk of unreasonable injury must be foreseeable, constructively or actually known, and preventable if a requisite degree of supervision had been exercised. Id.

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49 So. 3d 1049, 10 La.App. 3 Cir. 0436, 2010 La. App. LEXIS 1480, 2010 WL 4320480, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/glenn-ex-rel-glenn-v-grant-parish-school-board-lactapp-2010.