Samuelson v. Oregon State University

162 F. Supp. 3d 1123, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20991, 2016 WL 727162
CourtDistrict Court, D. Oregon
DecidedFebruary 22, 2016
DocketCase No. 6:15-cv-01648-MC
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 162 F. Supp. 3d 1123 (Samuelson v. Oregon State University) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Samuelson v. Oregon State University, 162 F. Supp. 3d 1123, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20991, 2016 WL 727162 (D. Or. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

McShane, Judge:

While a freshman at Oregon State University (OSU) in 1999, plaintiff Kristen Samuelson was raped off campus after being drugged at an off campus party. Her assailant was neither a student nor an [1126]*1126associate of the university. Ms. Samuelson brings one Title IX claim against OSU and two 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against Mike Riley, the head football coach at OSU during the relevant time period. Because OSU lacked meaningful control over either the location of Ms. Samuelson’s assault or the attacker himself, the Title IX claim is dismissed. Because no state official in Mr. Riley’s position at the time would reasonably have been on notice that they were liable for an off-campus sexual assault by a non-student, the 1983 claims against Mr. Riley are dismissed.

BACKGROUND1

On October 9, 1999, Ms. Samuelson, a freshman at OSU, was drugged at an off-campus party and then raped in an off-campus apartment. Ms. Samuelson woke up during the assault and “was in a'bedroom with OSU football jerseys and team pictures on the walls. The name Carlyle was on the back of one of the football jerseys and team pictures on the walls.” Compl. ¶ 8. A few days later, Ms. Samuelson reported the rape to OSU:

10.
On or about October 11 or 12, 1999, Plaintiff reported being raped to OSU’s sexual assault counselor at OSU’s Student Health Services. OSU’s sexual assault counselor said to Plaintiff: (a) maybe Plaintiff had said “yes”, (b) a rape kit was worse than the assault itself, (c) “these things are hard to prove”, (d) it would be blamed on Plaintiff, (e) Plaintiff should not have been drinking, gave her meeting times for Alcoholics Anonymous, and then had no further contact with Plaintiff, and upon information and belief, took no further action. No one else from OSU contacted Plaintiff thereafter about the assault or, upon information and belief, took any other action either.
n.
OSU’s sexual assault counselor’s words, inaction, and blame, caused Plaintiff to feel even more shame, humiliation, and emotional distress than she had felt after being assaulted, was dissuaded from seeking any further help from OSU, and consequently did nothing more to hold her perpetrator accountable for his crime.
12.
During this time, OSU failed to take corrective action to end the hostile educational environment Plaintiff experienced because of the rape and ensure Plaintiffs full and equal access to educational benefits and opportunities.

Compl.

Before the rape, Ms. Samuelson was an excellent student. “After the rape and OSU’s hostile response, Plaintiff attempted to continue her studies, but was too distraught, isolated, anxious, and depressed to attend class and focus on her studies.” Compl. ¶ 13. Ms. Samuelson failed at her studies and left OSU after her first year.

Fifteen years later, on November 14, 2014, Ms. Samuelson read an Oregonian article describing a similar sexual assault of another student that would have predated Ms. Samuelson’s assault by a year.2 Ms. Samuelson learned Brenda Tracy had been raped on June 24, 1998 by two OSU football players and two other men. The incident surrounding the rape of Ms. Tracy occurred in the same apartment in which Ms. Samuelson was raped. Like Ms. Samuelson, Ms. Tracy was drugged. Like Ms. [1127]*1127Samuelson, Ms. Tracy reported the rape to OSU’s sexual assault counselor. Calvin Carlyle, an OSU football player, was alleged by Ms. Tracy to be one of her assailants. Ms. Samuelson later learned her attacker was Calvin Carlyle’s cousin. Compl. ¶ 16.

Ms. Tracy’s rape generated much publicity and threatened donations to OSU. Compl. ¶ 19. Ms. Samuelson, still in high school in 1998, did not see any of the publicity surrounding Ms. Tracy’s sexual assault. Compl, ¶ 19.

Only upon reading the 2014 Oregonian article did Ms. Samuelson realize OSU essentially ignored a brutal rape of one of its students and failed to take any corrective action:

She also discovered in the winter of 2014 and early 2015, after Ms. Tracy made her report, [OSU’s sexual assault counselor] and other OSU officials failed to take corrective action, including (a) end the hostile and sexually violent culture toward women permitted by OSU’s football program, (b) create and implement more effective sexual assault prevention policies, (d) prepare and present training programs for students, coaches and faculty about consent and appropriate sexual conduct, (e) investigate sexual assault allegations impartially and comprehensively, (f) engage law enforcement, (g) craft discipline commensurate with the severity and frequency of the acts of sexual harassment and violence by OSU’s football players and their associates, and (h) have ongoing emotional, psychological, and educational on-campus support and off-campus resources for sexual assault victims.

Compl. ¶ 15.

Following Ms. Tracy’s sexual assault, Mr. Riley’s remarkably inadequate response was to suspend Carlyle and the other football player for one game. In a similar vein of moral blindness, OSU placed both players on “school probation, told them to perform 25 hours of communh ty service and to attend an educational program.” Compl. ¶ 20.

Ms. Samuelson did not discover until the winter of 2014 and early 2015 that OSU had actual knowledge of the risk of rape by student athletes and thus that it was foreseeable that female students would be raped in the future, and that OSU had failed to reevaluate its sexual assault prevention policies and procedures, training, investigation methods, football culture and system for supporting students who had been raped, and had failed to create and implement more protective and supportive and rehabilitative methods, policies, and practices.

Compl. ¶ 22.

In addition to the above general allegations, the complaint contains the following allegations specific to each claim:

Title IX Claim: Deliberate Indifference to Prior Sexual Violence

From the police report Ms. Tracy provided to the OSU sexual assault counselor in 1998, OSU knew “that Carlyle associated with sexually violent males” and participated in Ms. Tracy’s rape. Compl., ¶ 24. OSU also knew football coaches suppressed other reports of sexual abuse towards females by OSU football players, Id. Samuelson alleges:

25.
OSU had actual knowledge of the hostile culture toward women permitted by OSU’s football program and history of sexual assaults and harassment towards women by OSU’s football players. OSU also had actual knowledge of the substantial risk that Carlyle would associate with other sexually violent males who would sexually harass OSU’s female stu[1128]*1128dents at his apartment based upon prior conduct by Carlyle and his associates.
26.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
162 F. Supp. 3d 1123, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20991, 2016 WL 727162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/samuelson-v-oregon-state-university-ord-2016.