Does a school have a duty to supervise or provide for the protection of pupils on their way home?

Plaintiff, the boy who was hurt, did not go to the school as a pupil. He went there at defendant's request tod take his brother home. Both boys were ill ¹ but the illness of neither caused the accident, nor did it make it dangerous for them to go home without an adult. Nor were they unable to walk home. It is not alleged that defendant knew that the boys were riding on one bicycle. In fact, it is alleged that defendant directed plaintiff to transport his brother 'on means of transportation to be selected by said plaintiff.' A school district is under no duty to supervise, or provide for the protection of its pupils, on their way home, unless it has undertaken to provide transportation for them, which defendant did not do. See Girard v. Monrovia City School Dist., 1953, 121 Cal.App. 737, 264 P.2d 115. So, even if plaintiff had been a pupil at this particular school, defendant violated no duty as to him.

Hanson v. Reedley Joint Union High School Dist., 1941, 43 Cal.App.2d 643, 111 P.2d 415, is not in point. There the teacher arranged with another student whom she knew to have a defective car and a tendency to drive recklessly, to take home certain students in the latter's automobile, agreeing to give him gasoline for the purpose. Due in large part to the condition of the car and the faulty driving of the driver, an accident occurred in which one student was killed and another injured. In holding the district liable the court pointed out that the teacher undertook to provide transportation for the students and failed to provide reasonably safe transportation--a much different situation from that here. The district here did not undertake to provide transportation for plaintiff or his brother, and while there is a catch-all allegation that the district 'knew or should have known it [the bicycle] [176 Cal.App.2d 308] was * * * [an] inadequate, unsafe and dangerous' mode of transportation, there is no allegation that the district knew that plaintiff was going to take his brother home on a bicycle. Moreover, a reading of the entire complaint and plaintiffs' brief demonstrates that the complaint is based not upon any knowledge by the district of the fact that plaintiff was going to use a bicycle, but upon the theory that the district had a duty to either provide transportation for plaintiff and the younger boy or to determine the manner in which plaintiff was going to transport him. No such duty existed. (It must be remembered that we are dealing with an injury to the 11-year-old boy, and not one to the 6-year-old.) As there was no duty to provide transportation, as the district did not undertake to provide transportation, and as there is no claim that the boys were unable to walk home, defendant was under no duty to ascertain the manner in which the boys were going home.

Nor is Satariano v. Sleight, 1942, 54 Cal.App.2d 278, 129 P.2d 35, applicable here. There in passing from the gymnasium to the athletic field a student was injured while crossing a public street. In setting aside a nonsuit the court held that it was a question of fact whether ordinary care for the student's protection did not require the school authorities who had knowledge of the dangerous practice of the students in crossing the street outside of a crosswalk, to do something more than to give sporadic warnings to individuals and groups. In our case the accident did not occur on or near the school grounds, nor is there any claim of dangerous knowledge by defendant.

Page 440

Plaintiff cites two New Mexico decisions. McMullen v. Ursuline Order of Sisters, 1952, 56 N.M. 570, 246, P.2d 1052, held that where the plaintiff student was injured while digging shale at a mine as a part of a school activity, a jury could reasonably infer that the school was negligent in not supervising the activity. In Thompson v. Anderman, 1955, 59 N.M. 400, 285 P.2d 507, judgment for the minor plaintiff was affirmed where the defendant bus driver was found negligent in allowing the plaintiff to get off a school bus at other than a regular stopping place. Obviously there is no similarity between those cases and ours.

(b) Did defendant place the minor plaintiff in a position of danger?