Johns v. Univ. of S. Carolina

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MARY ELIZABETH JOHNS, Plaintiff, v. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA and DR. DAVID SNYDER, Defendants.

Civil Action No. 3:21-01197-MGL

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

May 16, 2024

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER DENYING USC'S MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

MARY GEIGER LEWIS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Mary Elizabeth Johns (Johns) brought this action in the Richland County Court of Common Pleas against the University of South Carolina (USC), former USC professor Dr. David Snyder (Snyder) (collectively, Defendants), and then-USC interim president Harris Pastides (Pastides). USC, with the consent of Pastides and Snyder, removed the matter to this Court in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 1331. The parties previously filed a stipulation dismissing Pastides without prejudice.

At this stage of the case, Johns's remaining causes of action against Snyder are a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 asserting sexual harassment in violation of her Equal Protection Rights pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as state law causes of action for reckless infliction of emotional distress (RIED), civil assault, and civil battery. Against USC, her claims for negligent failure to advise and breach of fiduciary duty remain.

Pending before the Court is USC's motion for reconsideration of its order granting in part and denying in part USC's motion for summary judgment. Specifically, USC asks the Court to grant summary judgment as to the remaining claims. Having carefully considered the motion, the response, the record and the applicable law, it is the judgment of the Court USC's motion will be denied.

II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Johns alleges Snyder sexually harassed her while she was a student at USC. Snyder claims he and Johns engaged in a consensual sexual relationship.

According to Johns, she informed Susan Collins (Collins), a mental health counselor at USC's Student Health Services-also with the position title “Coordinator of Trauma Response”- of Snyder's alleged sexual harassment. But, Collins failed to report the alleged harassment to USC's Equal Opportunity Programs (EOP) office or inform her of USC's Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), 20 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq. (Title IX), policy and procedures.

Collins's records reflect that on May 9, 2018, Johns told her “she is involved in an affair with an administrator at USC whose husband is ‘someone important' in the Columbia area.” Collins's Records May 9, 2018.

Johns attests she believes she never specified the gender of the person who was harassing her during the May 9, 2018, session, and if she did, it was an unintentional use of the incorrect pronoun from which Collins extrapolated other details. She also alleges she told Collins about Snyder's alleged harassment multiple times during her twelve appointments before she stopped seeing Collins in the summer of 2020, even though Collins failed to reflect her disclosures in the treatment notes.

The Court previously issued an order granting in part and denying in part summary judgment as to Johns's claims against USC. More specifically, the Court granted summary judgment as to Johns's Title IX, negligent supervision, and negligent retention claims against USC, and denied summary judgment as to her negligent failure to advise and breach of fiduciary duty claims.

After USC filed this motion for reconsideration, asking the Court to grant summary judgment as to the remaining claims against it, Johns responded. USC failed to file a reply. The Court, having been fully briefed on the relevant issues, is prepared to adjudicate the motion.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Although the parties both cite the standard for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), because the Court has yet to issue final judgment, the motion is properly considered under Rule 54(b). See Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b) (explaining it applies to “any order or other decision, however designated, that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties”).

Under Rule 54(b), a nonfinal order “may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties' rights and liabilities.”

“[T]he discretion Rule 54(b) provides is not limitless.” Carlson v. Bos. Sci. Corp., 856 F.3d 320, 325 (4th Cir. 2017). “The law-of-the-case doctrine provides that in the interest of finality, when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case.” Id. (internal quotation omitted).

The Court, therefore, may deviate from this principle of finality to reconsider an order under Rule 54(b) only when “(1) a subsequent trial produc[es] substantially different evidence; (2) [there is] a change in applicable law; or (3) [there is] clear error causing manifest injustice.” U.S. Tobacco Cooperative Inc. v. Big South Wholesale of Virginia, LLC, 899 F.3d 236, 257 (4th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted) (explaining this standard “closely resembles” the standard under Rule 59(e), which applies after the entry of judgment).

IV. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

As an initial matter, USC fails to aver new evidence or a change in law, so it appears it argues the Court should reconsider based on “clear error causing manifest injustice.” Id.

A. Whether the Court should reconsider its denial of summary judgment as to Johns's negligent failure to advise claim against USC

1. Whether Johns's negligent failure to advise claim is barred by the statute of limitations

USC contends the Court erred in holding a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Johns's negligent failure to advise claim is barred by the statute of limitations. Johns insists USC improperly attempts to “sneak[] in a whole new substantive motion under the guise of seeking to ‘alter or amend' an existing order.” Response at 2.

As the Court previously discussed, under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act (SCTCA), Johns had two years to bring her negligence claims against USC before this Court. See S.C. Code Ann. § 15-78-110 (“Except as [is inapplicable here], any action brought pursuant to this chapter is forever barred unless an action is commenced within two years after the date the loss was or should have been discovered.”). Johns filed this suit on March 22, 2021.

In its previous order, the Court reasoned if Johns disclosed any of Snyder's alleged harassment to Collins on or after March 22, 2019, she would be within the statute of limitations as to those disclosures.

In response, USC contends-for the first time-all alleged failure of Collins to advise Johns together constituted a single occurrence under the SCTCA. Because South Carolina has rejected the continuous tort doctrine except in limited circumstances such as nuisance, USC reasons, a single occurrence beginning before the limitations period is barred. USC then undertook an analysis of SCTCA occurrence doctrine to support its argument.

The so-called “continuous treatment” rule as generally formulated is that if the treatment by the doctor is a continuing course and the patient's illness, injury or condition is of such a nature as to impose on the doctor a duty of continuing treatment and care, the statute does not commence running until treatment by the doctor for the particular disease or condition involved has terminated-unless during treatment the patient learns or should learn of negligence, in which case the statute runs from the time of discovery, actual or constructive.

Harrison v. Bevilacqua, 580 S.E.2d 109, 112 (S.C. 2003). But, as USC notes, South Carolina generally refrains from applying the doctrine. See id. at 115 (“We decline to adopt the continuous treatment rule or the doctrine of continuing tort.”).

But, as Johns points out, the issue of occurrences, which concerns caps on liability, is separate from the statute of limitations. Compare S.C. Code Ann. § 15-78-110 (“any action brought pursuant to this chapter is forever barred unless an action is commenced within two years after the date the loss was or should have been discovered”) with § 15-78-120(a)(1) (“no person shall recover in any action or claim brought hereunder a sum exceeding three hundred thousand dollars because of loss arising from a single occurrence regardless of the number of agencies or political subdivisions involved”). None of the cases involving discussion of the SCTCA law of occurrences cited by USC involve the statute of limitations.

On the other hand, Johns cites a case that seems more analogous here. In Marshall v. Dodds, 827 S.E.2d 570, 576 (S.C. 2019), the South Carolina Supreme Court held, in a non-SCTCA tort case, when defendant medical providers failed to properly diagnose their patient's blood cancer over a series of treatment sessions, claims based on errors in the later sessions may proceed even if claims arising from the initial session would be untimely.

It reasoned, “[w]e fail to see the logic in preventing an aggrieved party from seeking redress for acts that occurred within the repose period.” Id. The court then went on to opine its holding was consistent with South Carolina's rejection of the continuous tort doctrine. Id. at 577.

True, Marshall involves medical malpractice, and this case involves failure to advise by a psychologist. And, Marshall addressed the statute of repose, rather than the statute of limitations. Nevertheless, the Court determines the salient analysis from Marshall applies here.

The Court thus determines it failed to commit any clear error that would require reconsideration of its holding that if Johns disclosed Snyder's harassment to Collins on or after March 22, 2019, her claims are...