## Facts

- A student, through his parents, sued a county school board and three school employees for harms allegedly caused by improper evaluation, placement, and instruction during elementary school.
- The complaint alleged negligent testing and placement that resulted in the student repeating first-grade material while being physically placed in second grade, with the asserted misplacement continuing through later grades.
- The plaintiffs claimed resulting educational deficiencies, embarrassment, and emotional harm.
- The complaint also alleged that certain individual educators intentionally and maliciously supplied false information about the student, altered school records, and demeaned him.
- The trial court sustained a demurrer without leave to amend, concluding public policy barred an “educational malpractice” action; the intermediate appellate court affirmed.
- On review, the court treated well-pleaded facts and reasonable inferences as true because the case came on demurrer.

## Issues

1. Whether Maryland recognizes a tort claim for negligence-based “educational malpractice” against a school board and educators arising from alleged improper evaluation, placement, and teaching.
2. Whether allegations that individual educators intentionally and maliciously falsified information and records and mistreated a student state claims sufficient to survive demurrer.

## Decision

- The court held Maryland does not recognize a cause of action for negligence-based educational malpractice challenging evaluation, placement, or pedagogical decisions.
- The court held the allegations of intentional and malicious wrongdoing by individual employees were sufficient to state claims and should not have been dismissed on demurrer.
- The judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with these holdings.

## Legal Principles

- Maryland courts will not entertain negligence actions that require judicial assessment of the adequacy of educational evaluation, placement, teaching methods, or academic judgments.
- Policy reasons supporting nonrecognition include the absence of a workable judicial standard of care for educators, speculative causation and damages, and improper judicial intrusion into educational decision-making.
- Public-policy limits barring educational malpractice claims do not immunize school employees from liability for intentional, malicious acts such as knowingly falsifying records or deliberately misrepresenting a student’s abilities.

## Conclusion

Maryland declined to create a negligence-based tort of educational malpractice for alleged failures in evaluating, placing, or teaching a student, but allowed claims alleging intentional and malicious misconduct by individual educators to proceed past the pleading stage.


Hunter v. Bd. of Educ. of Montgomery Cnty., 292 Md. 481, 439 A.2d 582 (1982)