R.L. v. State-Operated School District of the City of Newark, No.2086-05 (N.J. Super. Ct., App. Div. Aug. 14, 2006)

A New Jersey state appellate court has ruled that a former student who allegedly contracted HIV as a result of a sexual relationship with his high school band director can bring a claim against the school district, even though he failed to file notice of the claim within the statutory period. R.L. graduated from high school in the State-Operated School District of the City of Newark (NCSD). During his freshman year he reported to his aunt, who was also his legal guardian, that the band director had made sexual advances. She did not report the incidents but removed R.L. from the school and enrolled him in another city. However, he returned to his former school the following year. When he was placed in the band director’s class, R.L. requested a transfer but did not give his guidance counselor a reason. Later that year he told the guidance counselor about the alleged incidents during his freshman year. The counselor arranged for R.L., his sister, and his aunt to meet with a social worker. No action was taken after that meeting, and no additional incidents occurred that year. When R.L. returned for his junior year, his guidance counselor and social worker were no longer working at the school. It was during his junior year that R.L. began a sexual relationship with the band director that continued until shortly before he graduated. He turned 18 in July 2004. In May 2005, R.L learned he was HIV positive. He then reported the band director’s conduct to the Newark Board of Education and the Newark Police Department. In October 2005, R.L.’s attorney filed a motion for leave to file a late notice of claim against the school district. The school district argued that the claim accrued on R.L.’s eighteenth birthday, but the trial court found the accrual date was May 2005, when R.L. learned of his HIV infection. The accrual date is the date on which a claim can be brought and which is used to calculate the relevant statute of limitations period. The court found that R.L.’s age and the impact of the diagnosis amounted to "extraordinary circumstances" for purposes of the exception to the statutory time limit for filing claims. The school district suffered no substantial prejudice, the court concluded, because R.L. had made a prompt oral complaint.
       The appellate court rejected the school district’s argument that R.L.’s HIV status was irrelevant to the accrual date. It found that R.L.’s claim was based on the injury that occurred as the result of the sexual intercourse, an injury he did not learn of until the May 2005 diagnosis, rather than the unwanted sexual contact that occurred earlier during his freshman year. The court rejected the district’s attempt to impute to R.J. knowledge of his injury based on the earlier complaints of unwanted sexual contact, finding that the only element common to these two incidents was the identity of the student and the teacher. As to the later consensual sexual intercourse, the court noted that New Jersey "courts have recognized a separate cause of action based on negligent transmission of a venereal disease even when the injury is inflicted as a consequence of consensual sex between adults." The court did not share the school district’s skepticism of R.L.’s claim of delayed recognition of his injury. In a cause of action based on sexual abuse of a child by an adult, New Jersey law "assumes the possibility of delayed recognition of the injury," the court noted. The appellate court also rejected the school district’s contention that the trial court had, in effect, recognized a new cause of action making an employer liable for an employee’s transmission of HIV. The issue of liability was not yet before the lower court, the appeals court noted, and any employer liability for an employee’s acts would be related to negligence in supervising, hiring, and retaining the employee. Finally, the appeals court could not conclude that the lower court had abused its discretion as to the "extraordinary circumstances" exception; while R.L.’s relative youth, the severity of an HIV diagnosis, and R.L.’s oral notice might not have amounted to extraordinary circumstances when considered individually, considered collectively the lower court could properly have determined that the case fell within the exception.