S.D. Harassment Case Survives Summary Judgment

In South Dakota, a teacher-student sexual harassment case survived the school district's motion for summary judgment. Consistent with other cases, the federal magistrate rejected the district's argument that other victims' complaints about this teacher in the past did not constitute actual notice of the teacher's harassment of this particular student plaintiff as a matter of law. The magistrate held that it is up to the jury to decide whether those prior complaints about the teacher put the district on notice of the teacher's propensity for harassing behavior and triggered an obligation to act reasonably to protect the students in his charge.

Decision is: Plamp v. Mitchell School District 7-12, 2008 WL 2277519 (D.S.D. June 3, 2008).
See also this story in the Mitchell Daily Republic.