Doe v. Porter-Gaud Sch.

649 F.Supp.3d 164

Mary DOE, as mother and guardian of John Doe, and John Doe, Plaintiffs, v. PORTER-GAUD SCHOOL, Defendant.

No. 2:22-cv-02093-DCN

United States District Court, D. South Carolina, Charleston Division

Signed January 6, 2023

Christopher Thomas Dorsel, Sandra Jane Senn, Senn Legal, Charleston, SC, for Plaintiffs.

Greg Horton, Matthew E. Tillman, Molly McKenna McDermid, Womble Bond Dickinson U.S. LLP, Charleston, SC, Ellis Reed-Hill Lesemann, Lesemann and Associates LLC, Charleston, SC, for Defendant.

ORDER

DAVID C. NORTON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

The following matter is before the court on defendant Porter-Gaud School's ("Porter-Gaud") motion to dismiss, ECF No. 15. For the reasons set forth below, the court grants in part and denies in part the motion.

I. BACKGROUND

This complaint arises from Porter-Gaud's investigation into an allegation of rape between two minors who attended the school. Porter-Gaud is "an independent coeducational college preparatory day school" in Charleston, South Carolina. ECF No. 8, Amend. Compl. ¶ 3. In December 2018, the then fifteen-year-old John Doe engaged in a consensual sexual encounter with his classmate and neighbor, Catherine Roe. Id. ¶ 5. The two minors allegedly thereafter engaged in multiple sexual encounters with each other on separate occasions. Id. ¶¶ 6-9. Five months after the initial encounter, Catherine Roe told her parents that the initial encounter was non-consensual rape, though the remainder of the sexual interactions were mutually consensual. Id. ¶¶ 10-11. John Doe denies the claims of coercion on any occasion. Id. ¶ 11. Initially, both sets of parents decided that the matter was settled and that the teens should just stay apart. Id. ¶ 12.

Catherine Roe, however, was not satisfied by that arrangement and instead told the Porter-Gaud school administrators and counselors that John Doe had raped her. Id. Porter-Gaud followed mandatory reporting procedures and called the police to investigate the allegations of rape. Id. ¶ 13. The police did not prosecute John Doe because "there was no evidence of [John] Doe's guilt and even if Ms. Roe had told the police her side of the story, it still would have been a: 'he said/she said' case with corroborating witnesses supporting Mr. Doe, not Miss Roe's account of the evening." Id. The police ended their investigation with no action taken against John Doe. Id. ¶ 14. Catherine Roe was also dissatisfied with this outcome, allegedly "physically assault[ing] Mr. Doe at school on two occasions . . . [and] loudly calling him a rapist in front of many students, faculty and parents." Id. Porter-Gaud thereafter brought in "investigators from New York with the #MeToo Movement." Id. ¶ 15. John Doe's family hired counsel and provided the investigators with known witness information. Id. Eventually, the investigators dropped their investigation and Porter-Gaud notified John Doe that there was no policy violation on his part and he was free to return as a student in good standing. Id. ¶¶ 16-20. School officials refused to notify the other witnesses and students that they found John Doe had engaged in no wrongdoing. Id. ¶ 20.

Mary Doe, on behalf of her son John Doe, alleges that the investigation took a toll on her son and family emotionally, and on their family financially because they had to hire counsel. See id. ¶¶ 15-20. Mary Doe filed this complaint in the Charleston County Court of Common Pleas on May 29, 2022. ECF No. 1-1, Compl. At the time of the complaint's filing, John Doe was an adult who turned eighteen on July 31, 2021. Compl. ¶ 2. Porter-Gaud removed the complaint to this court on July 1, 2022 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1441, and 1446. ECF No. 1. On July 21, 2022, Mary Doe filed an amended complaint, now the operative complaint, which named her son John Doe as a co-plaintiff (collectively, the "Does"). ECF No. 8, Amend. Compl. Porter-Gaud filed a motion to dismiss on July 1, 2022, which the court determined was mooted by the amended complaint. ECF No. 11. On August 26, 2022, Porter-Gaud again filed a partial motion to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) and Rule 12(b)(6). ECF No. 15. The Does responded in opposition to the motion to dismiss on September 29, 2022, ECF No. 18, to which Porter-Gaud replied on October 13, 2022, ECF No. 22. As such, the motion has been fully briefed and is now ripe for review.

II. STANDARD

A. Rule 12(b)(1)

Dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) examines whether the pleading fails to state facts upon which jurisdiction can be founded. It is the petitioner's burden to prove jurisdiction, and the court is to "regard the pleadings' allegations as mere evidence on the issue, and may consider evidence outside the pleadings without converting the proceeding to one for summary judgment." Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R.R. Co. v. United States, 945 F.2d 765, 768 (4th Cir. 1991).

To resolve a jurisdictional challenge under Rule 12(b)(1), the court may consider undisputed facts and any jurisdictional facts that it determines. The court may dismiss a case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on any of the following bases: "(1) the [the pleading] alone; (2) the [pleading] supplemented by undisputed facts evidenced in the record; or (3) the [pleading] supplemented by undisputed facts plus the court's resolution of disputed facts." Johnson v. United States, 534 F.3d 958, 962 (8th Cir. 2008) (quoting Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d 404, 413 (5th Cir. 1981)).

B. Rule 12(b)(6)

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted "challenges the legal sufficiency of a complaint." Francis v. Giacomelli, 588 F.3d 186, 192 (4th Cir. 2009) (citations omitted); see also Republican Party of N.C. v. Martin, 980 F.2d 943, 952 (4th Cir. 1992) ("A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) . . . does not resolve contests surrounding the facts, the merits of a claim, or the applicability of defenses."). To be legally sufficient, a pleading must contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). A Rule 12(b)(6) motion should not be granted unless it appears certain that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts that would support his claim and would entitle him to relief. Mylan Labs., Inc. v. Matkari, 7 F.3d 1130, 1134 (4th Cir. 1993). When considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the court should accept all well-pleaded allegations as true and should view the complaint in a light most favorable to the plaintiff. Ostrzenski v. Seigel, 177 F.3d 245, 251 (4th Cir. 1999); Mylan Labs., 7 F.3d at 1134. "To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to 'state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.' " Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Id.

III. DISCUSSION

The court first examines Porter-Gaud's jurisdictional arguments regarding standing under Rule 12(b)(1) before turning to the issue of whether the Does have failed to state a claim for relief under Rule 12(b)(6).

A. Standing

Porter-Gaud alleges that Mary Doe has failed to properly allege third-party standing on behalf of her son because her son is no longer a minor and was not a minor at the time the complaint was filed, even though the alleged injuries giving rise to this action occurred while he was a minor. See ECF No. 15 at 2. However, since John Doe has joined this case as a plaintiff and has standing for each of the causes of action, the court finds that plaintiffs have adequately alleged standing. See Amend. Compl.

Under Rule 12(b)(1), courts consider whether the suit constitutes a case or controversy over which federal courts have jurisdiction pursuant to Article III. See CGM, LLC v. BellSouth Telecomms., Inc., 664 F.3d 46, 52 (4th Cir. 2011). Federal courts' standing jurisprudence contains two strands: Article III standing, which enforces the Constitution's case-or-controversy requirement, see Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 559-62, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992); and prudential standing, which embodies "judicially self-imposed limits on the exercise of federal jurisdiction," Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). The Article III limitations are familiar: the plaintiff must show that the conduct of which she complains has caused her to suffer an "injury in fact" that a favorable judgment will redress. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130. Although the Supreme Court has not exhaustively defined the prudential dimensions of the standing doctrine, it has explained that prudential standing encompasses at least three broad principles:

[T]he general prohibition on a litigant's raising another person's legal rights, the rule barring adjudication of generalized grievances more appropriately addressed in the representative branches, and the requirement that a plaintiff's complaint fall within the zone of interests protected by the law invoked.

Lexmark Intern., Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 126, 134 S.Ct. 1377, 188 L.Ed.2d 392 (2014) (quoting Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 12, 124 S.Ct. 2301, 159 L.Ed.2d 98 (2004)). "[T]he part[y] invoking federal jurisdiction[ ] bear[s] the burden of establishing these elements." Disability Rights S.C. v. McMaster, 24 F.4th 893, 899 (4th Cir. 2022) (quoting Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 338, 136 S.Ct. 1540, 194 L.Ed.2d 635 (2016)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Ordinarily, a party "must assert h[er] own legal rights" and "cannot rest h[er] claim to relief on the legal rights . . . of third parties...