## Facts

- Pine Manor College was a small, private residential women’s college; first-year students, including Lisa Mullins, were required to live on campus.
- The campus used perimeter fencing, locked dormitory access points, visitor screening at a main gate after 8 p.m., and overnight security guards.
- Evidence showed security weaknesses, including limited patrolling, inadequate locks, and portions of fencing or gates that could be easily climbed.
- In 1977, an unknown intruder entered Mullins’s dormitory, abducted her from her room, and raped her on campus; the assailant was never identified.
- Mullins sued Pine Manor College and William P. Person (vice president overseeing campus security), alleging negligent security caused the assault.
- A jury found for Mullins and awarded $175,000 against both defendants; the court reduced the college’s liability to $20,000 under the charitable cap but left the judgment against Person unreduced.

## Issues

1. Whether a residential college owes students a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect them from foreseeable criminal acts by third parties.
2. Whether sufficient evidence supported findings of negligent security and proximate cause despite the assailant’s intervening criminal conduct.
3. Whether the charitable liability cap limited the college’s liability but not the personal liability of an officer for his own negligence.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed the judgments.
- The court held that a residential college owes students a duty of reasonable care to protect them from foreseeable criminal acts of third parties.
- The court held that the evidence permitted the jury to find the security measures unreasonable and to find causation because the criminal act was a foreseeable risk of inadequate security.
- The court upheld application of the charitable cap reducing the college’s judgment to $20,000 and held the cap did not reduce the officer’s personal liability.

## Legal Principles

- A residential college may have a special relationship with its students that creates an affirmative duty to take reasonable measures for student safety.
- Foreseeability of criminal acts on a residential campus can establish duty even without proof of prior identical crimes.
- When third-party criminal conduct is a foreseeable consequence of deficient security, it does not automatically break causation; the jury may find negligent security a substantial factor in the harm.
- A statutory charitable liability cap may limit a charitable institution’s tort liability while leaving individual employees or officers personally liable for their own negligence.

## Conclusion

The court held that residential colleges must use reasonable care to protect students from foreseeable criminal acts, and it sustained a jury verdict finding negligent security and causation; the college’s liability was capped by statute, but the responsible officer remained fully liable for his own negligence.


Mullins v. Pine Manor Coll., 449 N.E.2d 331 (Mass. 1983)