Arizona Court of Appeals Division Two Holds That a Charter School Does Not Owe a Duty of Care to Its Students as They Travel to and from School.

In 2003, Jennifer Monroe was a fifth-grade student at BASIS charter school.  She was riding her bicycle home from school and was struck by a truck in a busy intersection one block from the school, leaving her permanently injured.  After she turned eighteen, Monroe sued BASIS, claiming it was negligent for failing to post a crossing guard at the intersection and for choosing its location in close proximity to the intersection.  BASIS moved for summary judgment, arguing that it had no duty to Monroe.  The trial court granted the motion.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed.  Although a school and its students have a special relationship that may give rise to a common-law duty of care, “the duty is tied to expected activities within the relationship” and “is bounded by geography and time.”  Thus, there is a “general rule” that a school does not have to supervise children traveling between their homes and the school.  In this case, BASIS had not engaged in any affirmative voluntary undertaking that might have created an exception to this general rule.  It, therefore, did not owe a common-law duty to protect Monroe from the harm she suffered.

The court also rejected Monroe’s reliance on Warrington v. Tempe Elementary School District No. 3, 187 Ariz. 249, 926 P.3d 673 (App. 1996), which addressed a school’s duty with respect to placement of bus stops, saying that the analysis, in that case, was irrelevant to the question whether a school owes a duty of care to its students while they are traveling to and from school.

The court also considered whether BASIS owed a duty to Monroe arising out of statute and concluded it did not.  A.R.S. § 15-183(E) requires charter schools to comply with rules, regulations, and statutes regarding health, safety, civil rights, and insurance, which are published in a list by the department of education but exempts them from other rules and regulations governing schools and school districts.  Monroe argued that the Arizona Department of Transportation manual titled Traffic Safety for School Areas Guidelines contained rules and regulations applicable to BASIS, which required it to consider proximity to arterial roadways when choosing a location and whether to post crossing guards at major intersections.  The court concluded, however, that the Guidelines were not “rules” or “regulations” because they were not legislatively-mandated rules, were not implemented by ADOT as part of the formal rule-making process, and were not referenced in A.R.S. § 15-183.

Finally, the court considered whether public-policy considerations supported the existence of a duty.  The court cited a statutory requirement for schools to discipline students for disorderly conduct on the way to and from school and noted that the legislature chose not to impose a similar duty to supervise students outside of school custody.  The court also noted that traditional public schools are not required to provide transportation or loading and unloading areas for students.  This weighed against extending a charter school’s duty to students not in the school’s custody.

Judge Miller authored the opinion; Judges Vásquez and Howard concurred