Verhel Ex Rel. Verhel v. Independent School District No. 709

359 N.W.2d 579, 22 Educ. L. Rep. 371, 1984 Minn. LEXIS 1550
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedDecember 21, 1984
DocketC7-82-1246, C3-82-1261
StatusPublished
Cited by37 cases

This text of 359 N.W.2d 579 (Verhel Ex Rel. Verhel v. Independent School District No. 709) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Verhel Ex Rel. Verhel v. Independent School District No. 709, 359 N.W.2d 579, 22 Educ. L. Rep. 371, 1984 Minn. LEXIS 1550 (Mich. 1984).

Opinions

[583]*583WAHL, Justice.

Twelve cheerleaders from Denfeld High School (Denfeld), Duluth, Minnesota, riding in a van, were involved in an automobile collision at 5 a.m., August 30, 1980, while they were “bannering” the homes of the school’s football players in anticipation of the season’s first game later that day. Robin Verhel (Verhel), one of the cheerleaders injured in the collision, and her father, Albert Verhel, brought suit against the drivers, cheerleader Karen Pitoscia (Pi-toscia) and John House (House), for negligent operation of their vehicles, and against the school district and the cheerleaders’ faculty advisor for negligent supervision of an authorized activity. The jury found for Verhel in the amount of $200,200 and for her father in the amount of $14,000. The jury in the special interrogatories indicated that each defendant was negligent and that the negligence of each was a direct cause of Verhel’s injuries. It apportioned the percentages of comparative fault as follows: School District No. 709, 35%; House, 26%; the advis- or, Diane Williams, 0%; and Pitoscia, 39%. The trial court issued its order for judgment based on the jury’s verdict and subsequently denied all post trial motions. We affirm.

Cheerleading is a sanctioned extra-curricular activity at Denfeld High School. The school district regularly assigned and paid a faculty member to direct and sponsor the cheerleading organization. Diane Williams (Williams), the faculty sponsor in this case, had become a teacher at Denfeld the previous year upon her graduation from college. During that year she had been assigned to direct and sponsor the cheerleading squad. Other than that she had no prior supervisory experience. The Denfeld cheerleading squad for the 1980-81 schoolyear was chosen on April 1, 1980. Thereafter, its members met with Williams and drafted the cheerleading constitution.1 The constitution was modeled upon the previous year’s constitution and was subsequently approved by Denfeld’s principal, Dr. Wayne Samskar (Samskar). The squad members also established their summer practice schedule. That schedule required the cheerleaders to practice three times a week during June and July, and five times in August. Practices were ordinarily held at the high school from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. In bad weather, practices were held inside the high school. Williams was not required, according to her contract with the school district, to meet with the squad during the [584]*584summer months. Nevertheless, she voluntarily attended a few practices each month, ordinarily arriving at the end of the sessions. To maintain contact with the squad, Williams relied heavily on the two squad captains.

The opening game of the football season, against Grand Rapids, was to be held Saturday night, August 30. Earlier that day there was to be a school-wide pep rally. Although the official football season was beginning, classes did not start until the following week. Sometime in August the cheerleaders began to discuss “bannering,” decorating with posters the homes of the football players for the opening game. On the morning of Monday, August 25, the cheerleaders met as usual for practice and following practice held their regular weekly meeting. Williams was in attendance. Members of the squad testified that they discussed their bannering plans at this meeting while Williams was present. They testified that they ascertained who was available to drive, obtained the names and addresses of the football players from the football coach, divided the names among themselves so that the parents of the players could be advised in advance of the bannering, and planned how and when to make the banners. According to the girls, Williams made no comment with respect to any of the arrangements discussed, but announced that she would be gone for the rest of the week.

Williams denies this discussion took place and testified that the most she heard was an offhand remark by one squad member to another after the meeting had concluded, which consisted of, “Hey, maybe we should go decorate some houses.” She made no inquiry.

On Friday, August 29, the squad worked inside the high school, making between 30 and 60 banners. The squad captains had purchased supplies for the posters after getting a purchase order signed by Williams against the cheerleading fund before she left on Monday. They borrowed tape and scissors from the principal’s office. At approximately 10 p.m. that Friday, Pitoscia was asked if she could get her parents’ van to drive the squad around as they bannered the football players' homes. Pitoscia obtained permission from her father to use the van and began picking up members of the squad between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on Saturday. Pitoscia testified that at the time of the accident she was 17 years old, had been licensed to drive for 13 months, was very familiar with driving the van, and that the van was in good operating condition.

John House, the other driver in the collision, worked from 11 p.m. Thursday to 7 a.m. on the Friday preceding the accident. He then went home, slept until 2 p.m., had a salad to eat, and worked on his boat for several hours. At approximately 6 p.m., he and a friend took the boat out on the St. Louis River. Before leaving the river at 10 p.m., he consumed three beers. He then proceeded to Bucko’s Bar, where he had two whiskey sours. After returning home briefly at approximately 12 o’clock midnight, he proceeded to the Palace Bar in Oliver, Wisconsin, where he consumed two more whiskey sours. He left the Palace Bar at approximately 2 a.m. and at approximately 3 a.m. had breakfast at a Perkins Restaurant. According to House, while he had felt somewhat the effects of the alcohol upon his arrival at the restaurant, he no longer felt those effects upon leaving at approximately 4 a.m. After giving a friend a ride home, House arrived at his home between 4:30 and 5 a.m. Because House was still hungry, he left again, this time going to a Taco John’s.

The collision between Pitoscia’s van and House’s jeep occurred at approximately 5 a.m. in West Duluth at the corner of 59th Avenue West and Grand Avenue. The van, carrying 12 cheerleaders and one other student, was heading in a northerly direction on 59th Avenue West. House, who was returning from Taco John’s, was driving his jeep westward on Grand Avenue. Because these streets do not intersect at right angles, the view to Pitoscia’s right was partially blocked by a building which abuts the sidewalk. This intersection was famil[585]*585iar to her, however, because her family’s home is nearby. Pitoscia testified that she was tired at the time of the accident because she had played volleyball earlier that day and then had worked her shift at Har-dee’s Restaurant that evening. She also testified that she was aware that the cheerleaders had planned to have breakfast together at 6 a.m., but that at 5 a.m. they had bannered only about half of the players’ homes. Pitoscia testified that she saw the stop sign that controlled her travel northward on 59th Avenue West and had slowed for it but rolled past it into the intersection. She gave varying accounts of how fast her vehicle was traveling. As she approached and entered the intersection she first looked right and could see only one-half of the block east of the intersection. She then looked left. Seeing no traffic, she again looked to the right. This time she saw House’s jeep. She estimated that the van was halfway into the first lane of Grand Avenue, which is two lanes in each direction, and that House was about a “football field” away. She said the jeep was coming “fast” but she felt she could make it.

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Bluebook (online)
359 N.W.2d 579, 22 Educ. L. Rep. 371, 1984 Minn. LEXIS 1550, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/verhel-ex-rel-verhel-v-independent-school-district-no-709-minn-1984.