Joan Roe v. St. Louis University

746 F.3d 874, 2014 WL 1181097
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedMarch 25, 2014
Docket13-1206
StatusPublished
Cited by80 cases

This text of 746 F.3d 874 (Joan Roe v. St. Louis University) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Joan Roe v. St. Louis University, 746 F.3d 874, 2014 WL 1181097 (8th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

Joan Roe 1 , a student athlete recruited for the field hockey team at Saint Louis University, and her parents brought this case under Title IX, a federal statute banning discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded educational programs, and Missouri state law. Roe claims deliberate indifference by the University to her rape by another student and state law violations including breach of contract, misrepresentation, and negligence following a back injury she received in training. 2 The district court 3 granted summary judgment to the University, and Roe appeals. We affirm.

I.

In reviewing a summary judgment, we take all facts in the light most favorable to the nonmovant who in this case is Joan *878 Roe. Argenyi v. Creighton Univ., 703 F.3d 441, 446 (8th Cir.2013). Roe arrived at Saint Louis University to begin her freshman year of college in August 2006. She had played as a goal keeper on her high school field hockey team and was recruited by the University’s intercollegiate team and received a partial scholarship. Roe has stated that she chose to attend Saint Louis University based on her favorable impressions of its athletic programs, educational opportunities, and positive environment.

Roe arrived in St. Louis in August 2006 for preseason training. She began as a second line goal keeper but hoped to move up to starter. After the season began, she injured her back, an injury she first noticed after a hockey practice in late September. Her injury was aggravated by subsequent practices and particularly by a weightlifting trial on October 26. Dr. D. Thomas Rogers, a physician who treated her after she left the University, testified by deposition that the weightlifting trial had further herniated a disc in Roe’s low back.

Near the end of October Roe received disappointing midterm grades: 1 C-, 1 D, and 3 Fs. Roe’s academic advisor, Peggy Dotson, believed that her low grades were partly due to the demanding field hockey schedule. Roe also experienced other difficulties. Earlier in October she had been accused of plagiarizing a speech in one of her courses. The Athletic Department’s academic services coordinator, Mary Clark, contacted Roe about her midterm grades and suggested university resources which could help her improve. These potential resources included a tutor, contacts with her professors, and study arrangements. Roe met with Clark who assisted her in finding a tutor for a geography class. The Athletic Department also arranged for weekly meetings with Roe, a weekly task list from Clark, structured study hall time, and random checks'on her class attendance. Meanwhile, Mary Roe had become concerned about her daughter and contacted academic advisor Peggy Dotson who provided her with names and contact information for Joan’s professors.

Because of her low grades, Roe was not permitted to travel with the field hockey team to a game in Virginia the weekend of October 26. That same weekend, Roe attended a Halloween costume party on Friday, October 27 at an off campus apartment building. Three students lived in the apartment, two of whom were members of the Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity’s Epilson Xi chapter. The party was not an official fraternity event, however, and was attended by other students. One guest later estimated that almost one hundred people were there while another thought there were up to two hundred.

Roe says she was raped during the Halloween party in a stairwell near the entrance to the hosts’ apartment. While she is unable to remember all that happened, she later told the St. Louis police that she had been socializing with a male student whom she identified by name. He was a fraternity pledge who had been dressed in a blue Smurf costume on the night of the party. Other party attendees told the police they had seen Roe and that student dancing together; one witness described seeing them kissing in the stairwell. Both Roe and the male student admitted to drinking alcohol that night. Roe stated that she had started drinking earlier in the evening while watching a baseball game with friends in the dormitory and continued to drink at the party. The male student told the police that Roe invited him to her room while they were dancing; they then left the party and went into the nearby stairwell and began “making out.” After sexual intercourse, he asked Roe if she *879 wanted to return to the party, but she declined and he rejoined it alone.

Roe later told the police that she did not remember leaving the party. Her next memory was waking up at a friend’s apartment. The Mend told the police that she had seen Roe crying at the party, and Roe had explained that she had been sexually assaulted. The Mend took Roe back to her apartment with the assistance of other students, and she saw blue makeup stains on Roe’s clothes. Roe later told the police that her back and vagina were sore the day after the party.

Shortly after the night of the party, Roe heard that the male student with whom she had been dancing was “bragging” about “having sex with a girl in the stairwell.” On October 31 Roe sent him a Facebook message describing the Smurf costume he had worn at the party. She wanted him to be aware that she knew he was the costumed man who had raped her. In his statement to the police he claimed that he had communicated with Roe online before and after the evening of the party, all of which Roe denies.

Several days after the party Roe told one of the field hockey captains about the party and said that she had gone into a stairwell with a man dressed as a Smurf. While Roe did not remember exactly what had occurred then, she was sore after-wards. The field hockey captain was concerned and believes she advised Roe to tell their coach about the assault. She also asked “if [Roe had] contacted the police or something like that” and whether she could share her information with the other captain “so that she could help me give better advice.” On November 1, the other field hockey captain reported Roe’s rape to Janet Oberle, the University’s assistant athletic director for NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) compliance and student services.

Oberle became actively involved in trying to help Roe. She called Roe in for a meeting on November 1, the same day she heard about the rape. Before the meeting Oberle spoke with a University professor connected with athletics to seek his advice on how to communicate with Roe. During their meeting Roe told Oberle that she could not remember what had happened and she never told anyone who had assaulted her until after she left the University. Oberle advised Roe that she could contact the University’s Department of Public Safety as well as the Office of Judicial Affairs which was responsible for student conduct. Oberle also told Public Safety that a student might be filing a report, but she did not contact Judicial Affairs since Roe had not told her that the man in question was a student. Oberle advised Roe to inform her parents about the rape, but Roe said she did not want Oberle to contact them. Oberle also asked Mary Clark, the academic coordinator in the Athletic Department, to contact Roe’s parents about her grades.

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746 F.3d 874, 2014 WL 1181097, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/joan-roe-v-st-louis-university-ca8-2014.