Williams v. Columbus Bd. of Edn

In Williams v. Columbus Bd. of Edn. (1992), 82 Ohio App.3d 18, 610 N.E.2d 1175, the Tenth Appellate District affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment for a school district in a case where three male students raped a female student. The court stated that the rape was not foreseeable. It explained: "The attack and rapes being unforeseeable, defendant did not owe to plaintiff Jennifer Williams the duty of either protecting her from the three male students or of escorting the three out of the building. In opposing defendant's motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs attached the disciplinary records of the three male students as well as the history of disciplinary problems at the middle school. uch records indicate that, despite the three male students' unruly behavior, they had no history of committing criminal assault to the degree or of the nature involved in the rapes of plaintiff Jennifer Williams. During the academic year immediately preceding the rapes, the male students, however, had been reprimanded a total of approximately twelve times for fighting and for general unruliness." Id. It went on to explain that only one prior circumstance concerning one boy was arguably remotely similar. In that circumstance, one of the boys straddled the desk of a female student and engaged in conduct offensive to her. The court explained that while that conduct may well have been extremely offensive, it was not so heinous that the teachers should have reasonably anticipated that the student would commit criminal assault or rape if not supervised. Id.