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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA Fort Wayne mother’s claims of battery and constitutional violations against her daughter, a first-grader, will not proceed after the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled the teacher and school corporation were entitled to summary judgment on those claims.
One day while administering a spelling test to her first grade class at Forest Park Elementary School in Fort Wayne, Jacalyn Butler noticed M.H. dropping various items on the floor. As M.H. was leaning over to pick up the items, Butler “walked by and touched M.H.’s posterior to induce M.H. to sit back down into her seat.”
Though both Butler and M.H. agreed the teacher patted the student with the tips of three fingers, Steffanie Haney, the child’s mother, asserted Butler had spanked her daughter. In footnotes to a Monday opinion, the Indiana Court of Appeals wrote M.H. testified that her mother told her she would be in trouble if she did not testify during her deposition that Butler hit her, so the court believed Haney’s account of the incident was most likely a lie.
Though the Fort Wayne Community School Corporation suspended Butler for one day, the district was unable to substantiate the allegation of spanking. Haney then filed a complaint in the Allen Superior Court against Butler and the school corporation, alleging battery and violations of her daughter’s Fourth Amendment rights.
FCWS moved for summary judgment, which the trial court denied in part as it related to the state law tort claim against the school corporation and the Fourth Amendment claim against Butler. The Indiana Court of Appeals, however, reversed that ruling on interlocutory appeal on Monday.
Looking first to the battery claim, Judge Paul Mathias wrote Butler’s actions were protected by qualified immunity under Indiana Code section 20-33-8-8(b)(3).
“Taking action to require that M.H. remain in her seat while the class is taking part in an education activity falls squarely within section 20-33-8-8B)(2)’s grant of a teacher’s right ‘to take any disciplinary action necessary to promote student conduct that conforms with an orderly and effective educational system,’” Mathias wrote.
Similarly, relying on Wallace by Wallace v. Batavia School Dist. 101, 68 F.3d 1010 (7th Cir. 1995), the appellate court found Butler was entitled to summary judgment on Haney’s Fourth Amendment claims because she “used reasonable force to induce M.H. to sit back down in her seat in an effort to manage and maintain order over her classroom.” Thus, the mother failed to establish Butler’s violated clearly established law.
The case of Fort Wayne Community Schools and Jacalyn Butler v. Steffanie Haney, for next friend and minor daughter, M.H., 02A03-1708-CT-1829, was remanded.
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