## Facts

- A.W. sued Lancaster County School District 0001 (Lincoln Public Schools) after her 5-year-old son, C.B., was sexually assaulted by a stranger in a school restroom during the school day.
- A stranger, Joseph Siems, entered Arnold Elementary School during school hours through a main entrance that was not locked; posted instructions required visitors to check in at the office for a nametag.
- Office staff were expected to monitor the entrance hallway to ensure visitors checked in, but Siems walked past the office without signing in and was not noticed.
- Several teachers observed Siems in the building and attempted to assist or direct him to appropriate locations, including a restroom and then the office, but he was not escorted.
- Siems went to a restroom near the entrance that kindergartners sometimes used without adult escort and assaulted C.B.
- C.B. reported the assault to his teacher shortly after leaving the restroom.
- School staff located Siems, initiated a lockdown, called police, and Siems was detained until officers arrived.
- A.W. alleged the district negligently failed to supervise and monitor entryways and hallways, enforce visitor check-in procedures, and prevent unauthorized access to students and restrooms.

## Issues

1. Whether a public school district’s duty of reasonable care to students depends on the foreseeability of the specific criminal assault.
2. Whether foreseeability is properly analyzed as part of duty or instead as part of breach and proximate cause.
3. Whether genuine issues of material fact existed on breach/foreseeability and causation that made summary judgment improper.

## Decision

- The Nebraska Supreme Court reversed summary judgment for the school district and remanded.
- The court held the district owed students a general duty of reasonable care that is not conditioned on case-specific foreseeability of the particular harm.
- The court held foreseeability ordinarily relates to breach and proximate cause and is typically for the factfinder.
- The court concluded the record presented genuine issues of material fact regarding whether the district exercised reasonable care under the circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence requires duty, breach, causation, and damages; duty is a general legal standard requiring reasonable conduct in light of apparent risk.
- An actor ordinarily has a duty to exercise reasonable care when the actor’s conduct creates a risk of physical harm; courts limit or deny duty only in exceptional classes of cases based on articulated policy.
- Foreseeability generally is not part of the threshold duty determination; it is commonly addressed in evaluating breach and proximate cause.
- Public schools have a duty of reasonable care to protect students while under school supervision; whether precautions were reasonable under the circumstances is ordinarily a fact question.
- Summary judgment is improper if material facts or reasonable inferences are disputed when the evidence is viewed in the nonmovant’s favor.

## Conclusion

The court held that a public school’s obligation to exercise reasonable care toward students is a general duty not defeated by a judge’s conclusion that a particular third-party assault was unforeseeable; questions about foreseeability and the adequacy of school security and supervision measures typically go to breach and causation and, on this record, required resolution by a factfinder rather than by summary judgment.


A.W. v. Lancaster Cnty. Sch. Dist. 0001, 280 Neb. 205, 784 N.W.2d 907 (2010)