The Action-Boxborough school district has seen a shamefully high number of suicides in recent years. At least six students killed themselves between 2015 and 2018.
The mother of one of those students, a boy named Jacob, took the school district to court after her son’s death in the summer of 2018.
The lawsuit claimed that the school’s social worker, Martha Frost, learned of Jacob’s suicidal ideations but failed to notify his parents of the danger.
Approximately six weeks prior to Jacob’s death, his girlfriend went to Frost and told her that “Jacob was going to do something stupid, including possibly hurting himself.”
Frost assured the girl that she would intervene and alert the boy’s parents. Apparently this never happened and when Jacob did in fact kill himself, his mother sued the school for negligence and wrongful death.
A trial court judge dismissed the lawsuit in favor of the school, citing the immunity clause in the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act. The pertinent section of the act provides that government entities (such as the school) are immune from tort claims
based on an act or failure to act to prevent or diminish the harmful consequences of a condition or situation . . . which is not originally caused by the public employer or any other person acting on behalf of the public employer.
M.G.L. c. 258, Section 10(j).
The mother appealed the lower court’s decision. The Appeals Court, in an opinion published yesterday, sided with the lower court judge and affirmed his dismissal of the case.
According to the Appeals Court, the immunity clause does indeed apply to the present case and nothing in the facts suggest that Frost was the “original cause” of Jacob’s death.
[Jacob’s mother] claims that immunity under § 10 (j) does not apply where a public employer (the school district) is the original cause of the harm. Specifically, she argues that Frost’s affirmative act materially contributed to creating a condition or situation that resulted in Jacob’s death… The [mother’s] complaint alleges that Frost failed to take appropriate action — to inform Jacob’s parents of Jacob’s situation, and to conduct an appropriate risk assessment of Jacob when she met with him and to keep a record of the meeting — after speaking with Jacob’s girlfriend. [She] does not allege the kind of “affirmative acts” necessary for Frost to be the original cause of Jacob’s suicide. For the original cause language of § 10 (j) to apply, the act must have materially contributed to creating the specific ‘condition or situation’ that resulted in the harm…In essence, [the mother] claims that Frost was the original cause of Jacob’s suicide by affirmatively telling Jacob’s girlfriend that she would inform his parents and then failing to do so, thereby depriving his family of an opportunity to intervene and obtain treatment for Jacob.
The full text of the opinion is attached below.