## Facts

- Bethany Jill Gross enrolled in a doctoral psychology program at Nova Southeastern University and relocated to Fort Lauderdale to attend.
- Nova required students to complete an eleven-month, off-campus internship (practicum) as part of the curriculum.
- Nova maintained a list of approved practicum sites and assigned each student to a site after the student selected preferred options.
- Gross selected six sites and Nova assigned her to Family Services Agency, Inc. (FSA), near the university.
- After leaving FSA one evening, Gross was confronted in the FSA parking lot by an armed assailant, abducted, robbed, and sexually assaulted.
- Evidence indicated Nova had been informed of multiple criminal incidents occurring at or near the FSA parking lot before Gross’s attack.
- Gross sued FSA and Nova for negligence; she settled with FSA and pursued Nova, alleging negligent placement at an unreasonably dangerous site and failure to warn.

## Issues

1. Whether a university may be liable in tort for assigning a student to a mandatory internship site the university knows is unreasonably dangerous, where the university provides no warning or an inadequate warning and the student is injured.
2. Whether summary judgment was proper on the ground that the university owed no duty for injuries occurring at an off-campus placement.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question “yes” and approved the appellate decision reversing summary judgment for Nova.
- The Court held that, under the alleged circumstances, Nova could owe Gross a duty of reasonable care in the internship assignment process.
- The Court did not determine breach, causation, or damages; it held only that duty could exist as a matter of law, making summary judgment inappropriate.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- A party that voluntarily undertakes to act must do so with reasonable care to avoid foreseeable injury to others.
- A university that requires an off-campus internship and controls or substantially influences student placement may have a special relationship with the student supporting a duty of reasonable care in making assignments.
- Foreseeability informed duty: prior known criminal activity at or near an assigned site can make harm sufficiently foreseeable to require reasonable precautions.
- The duty is not limited to warning; it can include other reasonable steps in response to known, foreseeable dangers, without creating a guarantee of safety.
- Off-campus location alone does not eliminate duty when the institution’s assignment is a required component of the academic program.

## Conclusion

The Florida Supreme Court held that when a university mandates an internship and assigns students to specific sites, it may owe a duty of reasonable care if it knows or should know a site presents unreasonable, foreseeable dangers; therefore, a no-duty ruling based solely on the off-campus setting cannot support summary judgment.


Nova Se. Univ., Inc. v. Gross, 758 So. 2d 86 (Fla. 2000)