## Facts

- A.H., a developmentally disabled high-school student, attended Kentridge High School in the Kent School District and received special-education services under an Individualized Education Program (IEP).
- A.H.’s mother, Madhuri Patel, asserted A.H. had cognitive and social limitations that made her vulnerable to manipulation and risky situations.
- During A.H.’s freshman year, Patel discovered emails suggesting other students pressured A.H. to steal and contained graphic sexual content; Patel reported concerns to school officials.
- A.H.’s IEP was described as requiring “constant supervision” to ensure her safety in a self-contained setting.
- In A.H.’s sophomore year, her special-education teacher, Francine Wilhelm, allowed A.H. to use the bathroom unaccompanied.
- A.H. later had multiple sexual encounters with another developmentally disabled student in a school bathroom.
- After Wilhelm notified Patel by email, Patel removed A.H. from the school.
- Patel sued, asserting (among other claims) a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim that Wilhelm violated A.H.’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights by failing to supervise and implement the IEP.
- The district court granted summary judgment to Wilhelm on the § 1983 claim, and Patel appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a public school teacher’s alleged failure to supervise a developmentally disabled student, resulting in peer-inflicted harm, states a cognizable substantive due process claim under the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether the school-student relationship here created a “special relationship” imposing an affirmative constitutional duty to protect A.H. from third-party harm.
3. Whether the teacher’s conduct fit the “state-created danger” exception by affirmatively creating or increasing a known danger to A.H. with deliberate indifference.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Wilhelm on the § 1983 claim.
- The court applied the general rule that the Due Process Clause does not require government actors to protect individuals from harm by third parties.
- The court held the special-relationship exception did not apply because A.H. was not in state custody comparable to incarceration or institutionalization and lived at home and could be withdrawn from school.
- The court held the state-created danger exception did not apply because the record did not show an affirmative, danger-creating act coupled with deliberate indifference to an immediate, known risk.
- The court concluded any potential remedy lay in state tort law, not the federal Constitution.

## Legal Principles

- The Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause generally imposes no affirmative duty on the state to protect individuals from private violence.
- A “special relationship” duty arises only when the state restrains personal liberty in a custodial manner comparable to incarceration or institutionalization; compulsory schooling and special-education placement, without more, do not create such custody.
- State-created danger liability requires (1) affirmative state action (2) that creates or increases a particularized danger (3) with deliberate indifference to a known or obvious risk; negligence or a lapse in judgment is insufficient for substantive due process liability.
- Failure to follow an IEP or to provide adequate supervision may support state-law claims, but does not itself establish a federal constitutional violation absent one of the narrow DeShaney exceptions.

## Conclusion

The court held that a teacher’s alleged failure to provide required supervision to a vulnerable special-education student, resulting in harmful peer sexual encounters, did not violate substantive due process because the student was not in constitutional custody and the teacher’s conduct did not amount to deliberate-indifferent, danger-creating state action.


Patel v. Kent Sch. Dist., 648 F.3d 965 (9th Cir. 2011)