By Patience Haggin, from The Recorder

SAN FRANCISCO — A California appeals court ruled in favor of the University of California Board of Regents on Wednesday, reaffirming that colleges and universities have no duty to protect students from criminal acts by other students even when the violence takes place in a classroom.

The 2-1 decision from the Second District Court of Appeal comes within a week of the deadly shooting at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College, at a time when campus violence is a serious concern.

The California case involved a 2009 attack on UCLA student Katherine Rosen by a knife-wielding student in her chemistry lab who had been treated by university personnel for symptoms of schizophrenia including paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations.

Writing for the majority, Justice Laurie Zelon stated that UCLA did not have a legal duty to protect Rosen.

“The conduct at issue here—a violent crime perpetrated by an individual suffering from mental illness—is a societal problem not limited to the college setting,” Justice Laurie Zelon wrote for the majority. “While colleges and universities may properly adopt policies and provide student services … they are not liable for the criminal wrongdoing of mentally-ill third parties, regardless of whether such conduct might be in some sense foreseeable.”

Imposing liability, Zelon wrote, might encourage schools to reduce or eliminate mental health services.

Presiding Justice Dennis Perluss dissented, siding with the lower court that the case should go to trial.

The ruling hands a win to the Regents’ lawyers at Maranga Morgenstern and Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland. Reed Smith lawyers Paul Fogel and Dennis Peter Maio backed the UC-Regents on behalf of California colleges and universities including Stanford University, Claremont McKenna College, Pepperdine University and the University of Southern California.

Munger, Tolles & Olson represented an array of higher education associations as amici curiae. Rosen sued the Regents of the University of California in 2010 alleging that university personnel failed to properly respond to warning signs that her attacker, Damon Thompson, might turn violent. Thompson had received psychiatric treatment for possible schizophrenia, and had been expelled from university housing after shoving another student, according to the ruling. Thompson admitted to the stabbing and was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The panel’s split decision reverses a ruling by Judge Gerald Rosenberg of Los Angeles Superior Court.

Rosen’s lawyers, Alan Dell’Ario, and Brian Panish and Deborah Chang of Panish, Shea & Boyle, argued that the school owed her a duty of care both as a student and a “business invitee” on the campus. They also alleged that the UCLA psychologist treating Thompson should have warned Rosen and others in the chemistry class of Thompson’s threats. The school was negligent in its provision of mental health services, Rosen’s suit alleged.

Zelon rejected Rosen’s argument for protection as a “business invitee,” writing that “a public college or university may not be held liable as a property owner for injuries caused by third party criminal conduct.”

Dell’Ario, who argued the case to the Second District panel in August, said Wednesday that he plans to appeal the ruling to the California Supreme Court.

Making a distinction between private and public universities effectively holds public schools to a lower standard of protection, he said. “You would be safer at Stanford than you would be at UCLA.” Dell’Ario also took issue with the court’s decision to deny Rosen protection under labor safety statutes.

“That would mean the professor and the [teacher’s assistant] being employees were entitled to protection, but the students they were hired to teach weren’t,” Dell’Ario said. In his dissent, Perluss referenced the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech and reasoned that a university’s duties to its students are “more nuanced than the all-or-nothing approach” favored by the majority, and universities have a duty to adopt “a reasonable program” to protect students from campus violence. That duty would be strongest, he wrote, when students are in the classroom.

For more on this story go to: http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202739260808/Court-Universities-Not-Liable-for-Campus-Violence#ixzz3oZGWz1zb