John Doe v. Oneida Baptist Institute

Opinion

RENDERED: AUGUST 21, 2026; 10:00 A.M.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

Commonwealth of Kentucky

Court of Appeals

NO. 2024-CA-1066-MR

JOHN DOE APPELLANT

APPEAL FROM CLAY CIRCUIT COURT v. HONORABLE OSCAR G. HOUSE, JUDGE ACTION NO. 20-CI-00033

ONEIDA BAPTIST INSTITUTE; ANITA HILL; CLAUDIA KELSEY; OTHER UNKNOWN DEFENDANTS; AND RICHARD BROWN APPELLEES

OPINION

AFFIRMING

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BEFORE: ACREE, EASTON, AND L. JONES, JUDGES. ACREE, JUDGE: This appeal arises from the Clay Circuit Court’s grant of summary judgment and dismissal of all claims asserted by Appellant John Doe. We affirm.

Oneida Baptist Institute (Oneida) is a private residential school in Clay County. Oneida’s housing policy segregated middle school students, such as

Doe, from high school students in separate wings of the same dormitory. High schoolers were not allowed to enter the wing where middle schoolers slept. When Doe was 13, a 17-year-old high schooler violated the policy, snuck into the middle school wing, and sexually assaulted Doe.

Doe did not report the assault but, about two months later, Oneida employees discovered a journal Doe’s assailant had been keeping. It detailed multiple sexual assaults he committed against other students, including Doe. The school investigated, Doe confirmed his assault, and Oneida’s dean suspended Doe’s assailant the same day. Doe’s parents soon withdrew their son from school. Authorities criminally prosecuted Doe’s assailant.

Through his parents, Doe sued Oneida and several administrators.1 After three and a half years of discovery, Appellees moved for summary judgment. They argued Doe failed to develop sufficient facts to justify a trial on any of the six counts alleged in his complaint—(1) negligence, (2) premises liability, (3) failure to supervise, (4) intentional infliction of emotional distress, (5) breach of fiduciary duty in loco parentis, (6) or punitive damages. The trial court granted the motion.

Although not required when granting summary judgment, the trial court provided limited analysis, concluding the assailant’s “conduct . . . was not

1 In addition to Oneida, Doe sued Claudia Kelsey (Dean of Students), Richard Brown (Dean of Boys), Natalie Hill (House Parent), and “Other Unknown Defendants.”

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foreseeable under either a negligence standard nor a premises liability claim . . . [and there was] no genuine factual dispute to support any claim for negligence [sic] hiring, retaining or supervising . . . .” Doe filed a timely notice of appeal.

“A trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment for insufficient evidence is to be reviewed de novo on appeal.” Ashland Hosp. Corp. v. Lewis, 581 S.W.3d 572, 577 (Ky. 2019). Under this standard, summary judgment was proper.

We accept Doe’s contention that Oneida stood in loco parentis to Doe giving rise to a duty to protect him.2 The question here is whether Doe presented enough evidence to create a jury question whether the bounds of that duty were breached. In that context, the trial court was correct that foreseeability is the gravamen of Doe’s claims sounding in tort.

When Doe filed suit, he alleged that one month before assaulting him, “the student [assailant] was suspended, or otherwise disciplined, by Oneida for sexually assaulting another student” and that, being “[o]n notice of the student’s behavior, Oneida knowingly allowed the student to return to Oneida.” This allegation is false, and discovery eliminated all genuine issues about this material fact. Doe’s assailant had been suspended, that is true. However, Oneida’s records show the suspension was for poor attendance, disruptive classroom behavior, and consistently low academic performance resulting in a 1.32 grade point average.

2 Doe does not cite to any such finding by the trial court.

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When Doe and his parents were deposed, they admitted they had no facts to refute Oneida’s evidence. They also acknowledged they had no facts to support a claim Oneida knew anything about the assailant’s journal until months after the assault, even though Doe was aware of its existence before the assault.

Most telling, however, was Doe’s counsel’s admission during oral argument before the trial court that he and his clients “were operating on some incorrect information. There’s no evidence to show [Doe’s assailant] was previously suspended for some sort of sexual incident . . . [and] Oneida never learned of this [journal] until November when it was disclosed.”

“Foreseeability defies precise definition but is generally defined in terms of occurrences that a reasonable person would anticipate.” Howard v. Spradlin, 562 S.W.3d 281, 286 (Ky. App. 2018) (citation omitted). And so, the law does not expect perfect judgment. Rather, “if [people] act with reasonable judgment, they are not liable because the event has exceeded their expectations due to causes that could not be foreseen or reasonably anticipated.” Merchants Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. United Produce Co., 131 S.W.2d 469, 472 (Ky. 1939).

Shelton v. Kentucky Easter Seals Society, Inc., “places the reasonable-

foreseeability analysis where it belongs—in the hands of the fact-finders, the jury.” 413 S.W.3d 901, 904 (Ky. 2013). “[F]oreseeability [i]s a factor in the breach analysis” and must go to the jury for decision. However, “if reasonable minds

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cannot differ or it would be unreasonable for a jury to find breach or causation,” summary judgment is appropriate. Id. at 916.

More than three years of discovery eliminated any genuine issue regarding Oneida’s or anyone’s prior knowledge of the assailant’s sexual proclivities. There was none. In this Court, Doe presents a different argument that Oneida and its administrators should have foreseen the attack.

Doe says Oneida knew “adolescents are sexually curious,” especially the male gender which is “notoriously sexually pre-occupied.” He continues by asserting the inevitability that “[m]ale-on-male sexual contact will occur,” sometimes “involv[ing] the use of force.” (Appellant’s Br. at 13.) If Doe’s Bacchanalian assertions are just as true as he so confidently states, and if we deem them sufficient in themselves to establish the foreseeability of a harm, institutions with a duty to mentor, supervise, and generally protect adolescent males may well cease to exist. Even if true to their very letter, these castigations do not support a factual conclusion that what happened to Doe was foreseeable.

“Men [and women] are not called upon to guard against every risk that they may conceive as possible but only against what they can forecast as probable.” Merchants Ice, 131 S.W.2d at 472. We conclude, based on a thorough review of the record, that “reasonable minds cannot differ” in this case, and that “it would be unreasonable for a jury to find breach or causation”; therefore, summary

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judgment is appropriate as to each of Doe’s counts in which breach is an element. Shelton, 413 S.W.3d at 916.

That leaves only Doe’s claim under Count Four that Appellees’

actions constituted the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and his claim under Count Six for punitive damages.

The claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress is thoroughly explained in Childers v. Geile, 367 S.W.3d 576 (Ky. 2012). We will not repeat that jurisprudence here. Instead, we focus on the element about which there is no genuine issue of material fact.

Childers says, “In this tort, the conduct at issue must intentionally or recklessly be done to cause emotional distress. The specific right being invaded is the right to be free of emotional distress caused by another’s outrageous conduct.” Id. at 580. The material fact here is whether Appellees, or any of them, intended to cause Doe emotional distress. We thoroughly reviewed the record and agree with Appellees that Doe failed to present any evidence to support any reasonable juror’s belief that Appellees intended Doe’s experience. Summary judgment was proper.

Finally, a punitive damages claim is derivative only. It requires successful pursuit of an underlying claim. As our Supreme Court said, “The threshold for the award of punitive damages is misconduct involving something more than merely commission of the tort.” Fowler v. Mantooth, 683 S.W.2d 250,

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252 (Ky. 1984). “The ‘something more’ necessary” is that the defendant’s conduct was “willful, malicious, and without justification”; that is to say, there must be proof of defendant’s “conscious wrongdoing.” Id. Not only is there complete absence of the “something more” in the underlying five claims, not one survives summary judgment. Therefore, neither can Doe’s claim in Count Six for punitive damages.

We affirm the Clay Circuit Court’s July 31, 2024 Summary Judgment.

ALL CONCUR.

BRIEF FOR APPELLANT: BRIEF FOR APPELLEES:

Ben Wyman John G. McNeill LaGrange, Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky