Case update regarding proving “special relationship” for liability: M.T. v. Pajaro Valley Unified School District (2026)
Does a school district have a “special relationship” with every student in the district? M.T. v. Pajaro Valley Unified School District (2026)
First, let me say this is a sad case.
A teacher sexually abused multiple boys in her school district. She was arrested, pled guilty, and went to prison. But when one of those boys later sued the school district, the question for the Court wasn’t whether what happened to him was wrong. It was whether the district owed him a legal duty in the first place and whether that school district was liable for criminal acts of a 3rd party…even if that 3rd party was a teacher for that district.
On November 2, 2026, the California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District, certified for publication M.T. v. Pajaro Valley Unified School District. The Defendant district moved for summary judgment on two grounds: (1) it “did not owe any duty to M.T., and (2) it was immune from liability under Education Code section 44808.” The trial court agreed on both. And the Court of Appeal affirmed:
“We discern no error in the trial court’s ruling, as M.T. was never a student of Mercer’s, the sexual abuse occurred away from school at Mercer’s home, and there was no school-related reason for M.T. to have been at Mercer’s home.”
The facts:
In the summer of 1997, between his eighth and ninth grade years, M.T. (the Plaintiff Victim here) met Candace Mercer (the 3rd Party Criminal here), a teacher at Rio Del Mar Elementary School. M.T. never attended that school. But his sister had been one of Mercer’s students, and so had his friend, E.S.
E.S. is how M.T. came into Mercer’s world. E.S. introduced them, and went with M.T. to Mercer’s home on two occasions that summer. On the second, after the other boys had gone to sleep, Mercer sexually assaulted M.T.
And E.S. had his own sad history with Mercer. He had been going to her house “since his days in elementary,” “a total of 15 to 20 times,” and “[s]even to ten times is when she raped me.”
Soon after, Mercer “was arrested and accused of having victimized a total of seven boys in the District.” She “pled guilty to one felony charge and two misdemeanor charges, receiving a three-year prison sentence in January 1998.”
Later, M.T. sued the school district for negligence, negligent hiring, supervision, and retention, and related claims.
The district’s motion for summary judgment:
The district moved for summary judgment based on three undisputed facts: “(1) M.T. never attended Rio Del Mar Elementary School, (2) M.T. met Mercer through E.S., and (3) Mercer’s sexual assault of M.T. occurred at her home in the summer of ‘1998.’ [sic, should have been 1997].”
This brought up the discussion of how a school district owes a duty, which turns on what a “special relationship” is.
The law: what is a “special relationship”?
Generally, an agency who didn’t create a danger has no duty to protect someone else from it. But there are exceptions:
“[U]nder some circumstances, a defendant may have an affirmative duty to protect the plaintiff from harm at the hands of a third party, even though the risk of harm is not of the defendant’s own making.”
Specifically, “a person may have an affirmative duty to protect the victim of another’s harm if that person is in what the law calls a ‘special relationship’ with either the victim or the person who created the harm.”
And what is a special relationship? “[A] typical setting for the recognition of a special relationship is where ‘the plaintiff is particularly vulnerable and dependent upon the defendant who, correspondingly, has some control over the plaintiff’s welfare.’”
For schools, that relationship can arise “from the mandatory character of school attendance and the comprehensive control over students exercised by school personnel.”
The holding here: no special relationship, so no duty
The Court held there was no special relationship between the district and M.T.:
“There was no ‘mandatory . . . school attendance,’ no ‘comprehensive control over students exercised by school personnel,’ and therefore no ‘reason to expect the [District’s] protection’ under these circumstances.”
M.T.’s arguments:
M.T. argued the district owed him a duty “as a District student,” regardless of whether he was “a Rio Del Mar student.” He pointed to the fact that he “lived in close proximity to Rio Del Mar, had a sibling that attended Rio Del Mar, and was known to frequent Rio Del Mar’s campus, such that [he] was a member of the Rio Del Mar community.”
For some of these arguments, there were no prior case holdings, so some of these issues below are novel and important to know going forward pursuant to California law in this area.
Overall, the Court wasn’t persuaded: “None of these circumstances involved mandatory school attendance or ‘control over the plaintiff’s welfare.’”
Here’s a specific issue the Court was deciding:
“Indeed, M.T. does not cite any authority to support the notion that a school district has a special relationship with a student when that student and a teacher from a different school (but the same district) interact at a private home, and when there is no school-related purpose for their interaction and no academic term in session.”
M.T. also argued that Mercer wasn’t just a teacher at one school. She was a teacher for the district. The Court: “M.T. appears to contend, solely by virtue of the fact that he was ‘a District student’ and Mercer was ‘a District teacher,’ that the District necessarily had some control over his summer vacation and leisure activities, but he identifies no factual or legal support for this dubious concept.”
Since no prior authority was cited on these facts, this opinion may become the go-to case going forward on similar facts.
What about the teacher’s deception?
Mercer told M.T.’s mother that M.T., E.S., “and some other boys from Rio Del Mar Elementary School were going to Mercer’s home to do yard work.” M.T. argued that because Mercer “presented herself… as a District teacher to gain access to and further her sexual abuse of [M.T.],” the district had a duty to protect him.
The Court disagreed:
“Because that relationship is based upon dependence and control—not upon a parent’s subjective perceptions of a district employee or a district employee’s veneer of trustworthiness and reliability—any deceptive representations by Mercer to M.T.’s mother are ultimately irrelevant. M.T. presents no authority for the proposition that a school district employee can somehow manufacture a special relationship out of whole cloth by concocting an excuse to have a district student who is not even her own pupil come over to her house.”
Constructive knowledge and foreseeability:
M.T. also argued the district had constructive knowledge of Mercer’s conduct, and that harm to students was foreseeable. But without a special relationship, the Court never got there. The Rowland factors, including foreseeability, “are only to be considered if a duty exists based on a special relationship in the first place.”
So, per the Court: “M.T.’s numerous arguments regarding the District’s alleged constructive knowledge of Mercer’s ‘inappropriate and deeply concerning behaviors with male students’ in her classroom and the ‘foreseeability’ of harm to students arising from her conduct are not relevant to this appeal.”
Briefly, regarding California Education Code section 44808:
The Court also upheld summary judgment on a second, independent ground: Education Code section 44808, which “governs a school district’s liability for the conduct and safety of students when they are not on school property.” (I’ve blogged about section 44808 before, in Taylor v. Los Angeles Unified School District [LINK].)
Here, the abuse happened off school property, and no school provided transportation or sponsored an off-campus activity. The Court: “We hold that section 44808 immunizes the District from liability in the present case, and this is an independent basis for affirming the trial court’s grant of summary judgment.”
My final thought:
What happened to M.T. was terrible, and the teacher was criminally prosecuted and sent to prison. But civil liability against a school district is a different question, which ultimately had a sad ending for the Victim and family here.
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