In New York v. Niagara-Wheatfield Central Sch. Dist., No. 22-2178 (2d Cir. Oct. 15, 2024), the Second Circuit reverses a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c) judgment on the pleadings, holding that the State of New York pled sufficient grounds for parens patriae standing without alleging a policy-or-practice violation against a target population of state residents. Judge José A. Cabranes, concurring dubitante, urges Supreme Court review of the parens patriae doctrine.
“[T]he State of New York, through its Office of the Attorney General (‘OAG’), brought suit against the Niagara-Wheatfield Central School District (the ‘School District’). The OAG alleged in its amended complaint (the ‘Complaint’) that School District officials had failed to address repeated complaints of student-on-student sexual assault, sexual harassment, and gender-based violence and bullying” in violation of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.
“The OAG’s allegations in this litigation fall into three categories: First are detailed assertions of how four of the School District’s students were subjected to sexual assault, sexual harassment, or gender-based violence and bullying by other students; how the four student victims and their parents repeatedly notified the School District and requested remedial action; and how the School District consistently failed to respond adequately. Second is the allegation that the School District knew of, but ignored, at least thirty similar incidents. And third are allegations that the School District’s lapses affected not only the student victims, but the School District’s community as a whole.”
The district court dismissed the case on the ground that the state lacked parens patriae standing, because the complaint did not allege “a generalized discriminatory ‘policy or practice’ of failing to protect victims of gender-based assault, harassment, and bullying in the School District.”
The Second Circuit reverses and remands. The opinion notes that two elements of proving parens patriae standing—a quasi-sovereign interest and the inability for individual plaintiffs to obtain complete relief—are undisputed. The only element in question is “injury to a sufficiently substantial segment of the state’s population.”
The defendant argued that the state, in service of this final element, must allege a “policy or practice,” e.g., of ignoring student “complain[t]s about gender-based harassment and sexual assault.” But the panel concludes that the controlling authority “nowhere states or even suggests that a defendant’s challenged conduct must amount to a policy or practice enforced against a target population to satisfy the substantial-segment prong of the parens patriae test.”
“Under the law of this Circuit, . . . a state seeking to bring suit in parens patriae need not plead, nor later prove, a policy or practice, or any repeat conduct routinely aimed at a single target population. A single challenged act by the defendant may satisfy the substantial-segment prong, so long as that action meets Snapp’s [Alfred L. Snapp & Son, Inc. v. Puerto Rico, 458 U.S. 592 (1982)] requirements of showing sufficient ‘injury to an identifiable group of individual[s]’ and ‘indirect effects of the injury’ beyond that group.” The panel states (in a footnote) that a policy or practice is but “one way to satisfy the substantial-segment prong of parens patriae standing. Today, we conclude only that establishing such a policy is not required.”
Here, the effects of the alleged inaction by the district to respond to several serious incidents of harassment were “palpable and pervasive [upon] the student and parent community.” The state alleged that the conduct “spread from a handful of perpetrators to a significant number,” including harassing social media, texts, posters, and other bullying. “In short, for each of the four students, the OAG’s allegations show how the School District’s failure to act allowed more and more students to turn into harassers.”
The panel remands the case, declining to rule on the merits of whether the complaint failed to state a claim under Title IX.
Concurring, Judge Cabranes signs the panel opinion despite disagreeing with the panel’s conclusion that the state has standing. “New York alleges deliberate indifference and negligent supervision against Niagara-Wheatfield Central School District—a district of six schools and more than three thousand students—on the basis of four unrelated incidents across different schools, years, and grades. This is a quintessential instance of a State having no ‘interest apart from the interests of particular private parties’ and thus no quasi-sovereign interest . . . . But I cannot be confident in this conclusion because the standard is uncertain. So I concur dubitante, because I believe that our confused parens patriae case law warrants clarification or correction by the Supreme Court.” The short separate opinion notes a possible circuit split over how to apply the parens patriae standard, and “[g]ranting certiorari would provide an opportunity to clarify the contours of this important but perplexing area of the law.”
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