Juhi Kaveeshvar, Kicking the Rock & the Hard Place to the Curb: an Alternative and Integrated Approach to Suicidal Students in Higher Education

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Publication year: 2008
• Citation: Vol. 57 No. 3

COMMENTS

KICKING THE ROCK AND THE HARD PLACE TO THE CURB: AN ALTERNATIVE AND INTEGRATED APPROACH TO SUICIDAL STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

In the early morning hours of October 27, 2004, Jordan Nott found himself unable to sleep.¹He was wrapped up in thoughts about a close friend who recently committed suicide by jumping out of his dormitory window.²Having taken a prescription drug that he knew could cause suicidal thoughts, Nott asked his college roommate to accompany him to the university hospital.³

Twelve hours after his hospital visit, he received a letter informing him that the university had evicted him from his dormitory room;⁴thirty-six hours later, the university mandated that he withdraw from the school or face suspension, expulsion, or criminal charges for violating the code of student conduct.⁵

Additionally, the university warned him to stay away from campus and threatened to arrest him as a trespasser if he attempted to return.⁶

Nott said the university's actions felt "like a stab in the back"⁷and "a huge slap in the face."⁸To him, it felt as though the school wanted to "wipe [its] hands clean" of him.⁹Nott's experience led him to sue the university.¹⁰In

November 2006, two years after the incident, the university settled the lawsuit,¹¹with the provost stating, "While we recognize that some steps in the process may not have been perfect, we stand by the result."¹²

Across the country, an increasing number of colleges and universities are implementing policies similar to The George Washington University's policy described above¹³and, in turn, are facing formal complaints and litigation from affected students.¹⁴Suicide is a leading cause of death for college students, second only to automobile accidents.¹⁵Student suicides are not a new phenomenon,¹⁶but university responses such as eviction and policies that mandate the student's withdrawal from school are certainly a recent and growing trend.¹⁷While university officials claim that they have implemented the policies with students' best interests in mind,¹⁸critics believe that the true motivation stems from two recent court cases.¹⁹

In the closely watched Shin v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology²⁰and

Schieszler v. Ferrum College,²¹courts considered whether universities and their administrators could be held liable for the suicides of two enrolled students who lived in campus housing.²²While the parties in both cases eventually settled,²³in pre-settlement rulings, both judges rejected the universities' assertions that they owed no duty to the deceased student²⁴and stated that the universities' liability turned on the issue of foreseeability.²⁵

Unfortunately for school officials who awaited a final decision in the cases,²⁶the fact that these cases settled left unanswered the question of whether universities and their administrators owe a duty to their students.²⁷Fearing liability, negative publicity, and multi-million-dollar lawsuits,²⁸many universities have developed mandatory-leave policies similar to the one in place at The George Washington University.²⁹

This Comment discusses the seemingly difficult position in which university administrators find themselves: one the one hand, if universities respect students' privacy and treat them as adults, they open themselves up to lawsuits based on wrongful death and negligence; on the other hand, if they implement mandatory withdrawal policies or force students to vacate campus housing, they risk violating federal statutes and the Constitution.³⁰As an alternative to these options, this Comment proposes a collaborative approach that avoids liability for universities, but not at the cost of students' health and safety. This integrated approach necessitates that courts, legislatures, and universities take unified and complementary actions in combating the student suicide epidemic.

Part I discusses the split in the case law regarding special relationships, the duty that universities owe to their students, and universities' risk of tort liability. Additionally, it explains the economic reasons behind why administrators often prefer mandatory withdrawal and eviction as a response to suicidal students. Part II examines the [suicide-response?] policies currently in place at colleges across the United States and the legal liabilities associated with each. Part III puts forth the solutions already offered by academics and then explains why a collaborative approach addresses the problem more effectively than a solution that focuses solely on courts, legislatures, or universities. Part IV discusses the various avenues through which legislatures and courts can effect changes-legislatures by implementing new laws and courts by establishing appropriate standards of liability for universities and administrators. Finally, Part V proposes an approach that all universities should adopt to achieve socially desirable policies toward suicidal students while simultaneously avoiding legal liability.

I. THE DEPARTURE FROM PRECEDENT: SHIN, SCHIESZLER, AND JAIN

A. Legal Principles and "Special Relationships"

In the development of American tort law, common law rules did not recognize an affirmative duty of care between universities and their adult students absent a showing of a special relationship.³¹Additionally, the traditional rule was that suicide constituted a "deliberate, intentional and intervening act that preclude[d] another's responsibility for the harm."³²

However, the law has slowly developed two exceptions to the traditional rule. The first exception is where the individual or entity actually caused the suicide.³³The second exception applies when the individual or entity had a duty to prevent the suicide.³⁴Cases in the educational context continue to promote the principle that suicide constitutes an intentional and intervening act³⁵because "[s]tudents are expected to shoulder the stresses and burdens of the transition into the college environment, even if those burdens are very high."³⁶In Jain v. State, for example, a first-year student at the University of Iowa asphyxiated himself by leaving his moped running in his locked room.³⁷

The trial court granted the university's motion for summary judgment,³⁸and the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed the ruling because it found that the university neither increased the likelihood that the student would commit suicide nor led him to stop looking for help elsewhere.³⁹The Jain court also affirmed the general principle that suicide is a superseding, intervening act that cuts off any possible third-party liability.⁴⁰Because the court determined that no special relationship existed between the university and the student, it did not allow for an exception to that principle.⁴¹

Unfortunately for administrators of educational institutions, the pre- settlement rulings in Shin⁴²and Schieszler⁴³have muddled the liability landscape. In Schieszler, a student hung himself in his dormitory room after writing letters to friends indicating that he was depressed and thinking of committing suicide.⁴⁴The district court found that the plaintiff offered enough evidence to establish the existence of a special relationship because the university, the Dean of Student Affairs, and the Dormitory Resident Advisor knew of the student's problems.⁴⁵Additionally, the court held that the university and the dean breached this duty.⁴⁶Hence, liability would have turned on proximate cause and foreseeability.⁴⁷The parties came to a settlement agreement in 2003, before the trial was to commence.⁴⁸

College administrators subsequently kept a close eye on Shin.⁴⁹Elizabeth Shin first experienced psychiatric health problems during the spring semester of her first year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).⁵⁰Over the next twelve months, several MIT psychiatrists and physicians, Deans of

Counseling and Support Services, MIT professors, and a dormitory housemaster observed Shin's suicidal tendencies and worrisome behavior.⁵¹

On April 10, 2000, MIT Campus Police found Shin in her dormitory room with her "clothing engulfed in flames."⁵²Her parents terminated her life support four days later.⁵³When her parents sued MIT and its administrators for wrongful death and negligence, the defendants moved for summary judgment.⁵⁴While the court granted summary judgment for MIT, it denied summary judgment for the administrators⁵⁵because it found the existence of a special relationship between the administrators and Shin.⁵⁶The court found

Shin's suicide reasonably foreseeable.⁵⁷Therefore, the court concluded that the administrators had a duty to protect Shin from harm.⁵⁸Shin's family agreed to settle the case before a jury could return a verdict. ⁵⁹

The trend toward holding administrators personally liable recently turned back in favor of the traditional common law with a lawsuit filed against Allegheny College.⁶⁰On February 11, 2002, a student hung himself in his fraternity house after having expressing suicidal thoughts to a university counselor,⁶¹who in turn relayed the information to administrative deans.⁶²In a pretrial order, the court ruled that the deans owed no duty of care to Mahoney.⁶³The jury found that the university counselor was not liable for Mahoney's death.⁶⁴

B. The Effect of Deviation from Traditional Tort Principles

Recent case law leaves university administrators uncertain about the current state of the law and unable to predict where it will go in the future. The oldest case, Jain, and the most recent case, Mahoney, comport with common law principles; whether Schieszler and Shin are blips on a continuum or the beginning of a new direction in tort law is still unclear.

While Jain and Mahoney should serve as reassuring precedent for higher education administrators, both do little to allay the fears that Schieszler and Shin created.⁶⁵When family members sue administrators in their individual capacities, the administrators have an added incentive to remove the "problematic" student before he creates an issue of...