Rogers by and Through Standley v. Retrum
170 Ariz. 399, 825 P.2d 20 (1991)
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Rule of Law:
A high school's open-campus policy that permits unsupervised egress during the school day does not create an unreasonable risk of harm from off-campus vehicular accidents, and therefore the school does not breach its duty of care to students injured in such accidents.
Facts:
- Kevin C. Rogers, a sixteen-year-old junior at Prescott High School, took an advanced electronics test.
- His teacher, Randolph Retrum, publicly gave Rogers a failing grade and told him it was because "I don’t like you."
- Retrum's class had an "open class" policy permitting students to leave at will, and Prescott High School had an "open campus" policy allowing students to enter and leave campus freely during the day.
- Humiliated and upset, Rogers left class and the school campus with his friend, Natalo Russo, in Russo's car.
- While driving away from the school, Russo accelerated to over 90 miles per hour in a curve, lost control of the car, and crashed.
- Rogers was ejected from the vehicle during the crash and sustained serious injuries.
- Retrum later admitted that Rogers had actually passed the test and that he had lied to him because he "wanted [Rogers] to know what it felt like to fail."
Procedural Posture:
- Kevin C. Rogers filed a negligence lawsuit against Randolph Retrum and Prescott Unified School District in the trial court.
- Rogers settled his separate negligence claims against the driver, Natalo Russo, and Russo's parents.
- The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants Retrum and the school district.
- Rogers, as appellant, appealed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the intermediate appellate court.
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Issue:
Does a high school and its teacher breach their duty of care to a student by implementing an open-campus policy that permits students to leave during school hours, when that student is subsequently injured in an off-campus car accident caused by a fellow student's reckless driving?
Opinions:
Majority - Fidel, Presiding Judge.
No. A high school and its teacher do not breach their duty of care in this situation because an open-campus policy does not subject a student to an unreasonable risk of vehicular injury. The court's reasoning distinguishes between the core elements of negligence: duty, breach, and causation. While the school had a duty of reasonable care to Rogers and the open-campus policy was a but-for cause of his presence on the road, the central question is one of breach. The court determined that not every foreseeable risk is an unreasonable one. Vehicular accidents are an ordinary risk of modern life, and the school's policy did not increase this general risk. To hold the school liable would be to make it an insurer against ordinary off-campus risks, a policy a court is unwilling to impose. The court concluded that while the risk of a car accident was foreseeable, the school's conduct in allowing students to leave campus was not unreasonable.
Analysis:
This case clarifies the critical distinction between a foreseeable risk and an unreasonable risk within the context of a school's duty of care. It establishes that a school's duty does not extend to shielding high school students from the ordinary risks of society, such as vehicular accidents, that they would face when not in school. By focusing the analysis on the element of breach rather than duty or proximate cause, the decision provides significant legal protection to school districts with open-campus policies. The court’s policy-based reasoning suggests that decisions about campus supervision for older students are better left to local school boards rather than being decided on a case-by-case basis by juries.
