Background
In fall 2018, R.R.S., an eighth grader at Urbandale Middle School, was coerced by classmate K.O. into sending nude photographs, which he then distributed to other students after she rejected his romantic advances. R.R.S. faced pervasive peer harassment — students mocked her, called her derogatory names, and whispered about her in the halls. The harassment then escalated: R.R.S. alleged that K.O., who sat directly beside her in a joint language arts class staffed by four adults, began touching her inappropriately and ultimately digitally penetrated her daily over an extended period. R.R.S. did not report the assaults to school staff. K.O. had a documented history of behavioral issues and was subject to an individualized education plan (IEP) requiring teacher check-ins every seven minutes.
R.R.S.’s conduct deteriorated — she began missing school, purchased marijuana, and was suspended for ten days, at which point she transferred to a different school. In the fall of 2019, after encountering K.O. at a party, R.R.S.’s mental health sharply declined. She disclosed the assaults to her mother, attempted suicide on multiple occasions, and was subsequently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and PTSD. She was hospitalized at two residential treatment facilities for a combined twenty months.
R.R.S.’s parents, Jodi and Michael Safris, sued the Urbandale Community School District for negligence in failing to prevent the assault and harassment. The case proceeded to a jury trial. The jury found the school district was at fault but determined that its fault was not the proximate cause of R.R.S.’s injuries, resulting in a verdict for the district. The Safrises appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial, holding that the district court committed reversible error by refusing to instruct the jury on the heightened standard of care applicable to school districts. The plaintiffs had requested an instruction based on Burton v. Des Moines Metropolitan Transit Authority, 530 N.W.2d 696 (Iowa 1995), which requires school districts to exercise the same care “that a parent of ordinary prudence would observe in comparable circumstances.” Instead, the trial court gave only a generic reasonable-person negligence instruction, concluding that Iowa’s 2009 adoption of the Restatement (Third) of Torts had displaced the Burton standard. The Court of Appeals disagreed, finding that neither Thompson v. Kaczinski nor subsequent decisions disturbed the parental-standard-of-care rule, and that the Restatement (Third) itself expressly recognizes an affirmative duty running from schools to students.
The court also addressed two evidentiary issues likely to recur on retrial. It held that the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners’ (BOEE) investigative file on the school principal is statutorily barred from admission, but that the BOEE’s public written decision and findings of fact are not barred — though on the facts presented they were not admissible as habit evidence or as otherwise relevant. The court left open whether the BOEE’s public findings could be used on cross-examination to attack the principal’s character for untruthfulness under Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.608. Additionally, the court found that the district court abused its discretion by admitting expert testimony from law professor Jennifer Drobac in which she concluded that the school district “complied” with the law governing sexual harassment — crossing from permissible standard-of-care opinion into an inadmissible legal conclusion that usurped the jury’s role.
The court declined to reach the issues of K.O.’s other-acts evidence and the alleged inconsistency of the verdict, the latter being moot given the remand.
Key Takeaways
- Iowa school districts remain subject to a heightened parental standard of care under Burton — a jury must be so instructed when the claim is school negligence; the generic reasonable-person instruction is legally insufficient and constitutes reversible error.
- Iowa’s adoption of the Restatement (Third) of Torts did not eliminate the Burton parental-standard rule; the Restatement (Third) § 40 independently recognizes an affirmative duty from schools to students, reinforcing rather than displacing that standard.
- An expert witness in a negligence case may opine on standard of care and whether a defendant’s conduct met it, but may not render a legal conclusion that the defendant “complied with the law” — that determination belongs to the jury.
- BOEE investigative files are statutorily confidential and inadmissible, but final written decisions and findings of fact are public records; however, a single disciplinary incident does not constitute admissible habit evidence under Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.406.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that Iowa school districts occupy a special legal position — as quasi-parents — that demands more of them than the ordinary reasonable-person standard. Defense counsel in school-liability cases cannot rely on a generic negligence instruction when a student alleges harm from another student’s conduct on school grounds; failure to request or give the Burton instruction can void an otherwise favorable verdict. The ruling also signals that courts will police the line between permissible standard-of-care expert testimony and impermissible legal conclusions: experts who tell jurors that a defendant “complied with the law” will find their testimony excluded on retrial.
For plaintiffs’ counsel, the case illustrates the strategic importance of jury instruction disputes in school negligence litigation. The Safrises won a finding of fault from the jury but lost on causation — yet the wrong standard-of-care instruction alone was sufficient to secure a new trial. On remand, with a properly instructed jury applying the parental-prudence standard and a constrained expert, the causation question will be relitigated under a legal framework more favorable to the student-victim.