By Gina McKlveen
In February of this year, United States District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed, a high school cheerleader’s first amended complaint against Northside Independent School District (“NISD”) after finding that the alleged due process and Title IX claims were conclusory and failed to establish a violation of any constitutional rights. Thereafter, Cloe Murphy (“Murphy”), the plaintiff in this action, filed a second amended complaint to the same court, alleging the same claims. However, on May 3, 2023, the Court dismissed Murphy’s second amended complaint citing the same deficiencies as her first complaint.
By way of background, Murphy’s claims arose following a cheerleading practice at NISD, where she arrived late the cheerleading coach, Sarita Shanley (“Shanley”) forced her to complete 150 frog jump exercises in temperatures upwards of 95 degrees Fahrenheit without providing her with any water. Her complaint accuses Shanley and her other cheerleading coaches of lacking concern for her health and safety, indicating that while she was apparently becoming sick the coaches repeatedly yelled at her and failed to contact a trainer or nurse for help. As a result, after practice Murphy was admitted to a hospital, where she remained for nearly a week. She was diagnosed with severe dehydration, damaged muscles in her legs, kidney damage, as well as an autoimmune disorder known as Rhabdomyolysis.
Murphy sued NISD alleging claims of unconstitutional policies, procedures, and practices in violation of her constitutional rights to due process according to Section 1983, as well as violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Murphy’s argument to support her Section 1983 claims were that NISD’s School Board was negligent in hiring, training, and supervising Shanley. As for her Title IX claims, Murphy argued that NISD’s School Board did not provide an equivalent level of funding to female student athletes as it did to male student athletes.
Upon reviewing Murphy’s second amended complaint, the Court observed that it “largely mirrors her first amended complaint and…has failed to remedy her pleadings…to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Yet, the Court included a full analysis of each of the claims and indicated its reasoning for dismissing Murphy’s complaint.
The Section 1983 Claim-due process
Section 1983 prohibits “persons” acting under the color of law from depriving another of any “rights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” For purposes of this rule, “persons” can include municipalities and local governmental entities, which could be liable for violations under this section, but only for acts that is actually responsible. Three elements are required to prove this type of claim specifically, (1) an official policy or custom; (2) a policymaker who can be charged with actual or constructive knowledge of the policy; and (3) a violation of constitutional rights whose “moving force” is the policy or custom. To succeed in bringing a section 1983 claim, Murphy had to demonstrate that, through the NISD’s deliberate conduct, the custom or policy of the school board was “moving force” behind her injuries. Instead, Murphy asserted an allegation of one instance of misjudgment by one NISD employee, which according to the Court did not amount to a practice so common that it was in effect a NISD policy. Moreso, Murphy presented no school board policy that was the moving force behind the constitutional violation she alleges to have suffered. Rather, her claims were conclusory and failed to establish any specific factual allegations to support her claims.
Therefore, Murphy’s failure to establish that there was a policy known by a policymaker, her Section 1983 due process claim against NISD was dismissed.
The Section 1983 Claim-deliberate indifference
To avoid dismissal of a Section 1983 failure-to-train claim or a failure-to-supervise claim, a plaintiff must allege sufficient facts to show: “(1) that the school district’s training or supervision procedures were inadequate, (2) that the school district was deliberately indifferent in adopting such policies, and (3) that the inadequate policies directly caused the violations in question.” There are two means of proving deliberate indifference for failure to train claims, which has been extended to failure to supervise claims: (1) a plaintiff can establish deliberate indifference if a violation occurs “so often” that a factfinder can infer from the pattern of violations and (2) there is a “single incident exception” where, even absent proof of a pattern, deliberate indifference can be inferred if a factfinder determines that the risk of constitutional violations was or should have been an “obvious” or “highly predictable consequence” of the alleged training inadequacy. Here, since Murphy was alleging one single incident, her complaint had to prove the single incident exception. But the Court found again that Murphy failed to provide any evidentiary basis to support her argument that Shanley or the other cheerleading coaches were not trained on the safety and medical care policies that the school board had in place. Murphy’s failure to plead any facts supporting her assertions under deliberate indifference reinforced the Court’s decision to dismiss her Section 1983 claim in her second amended complaint.
The Title IX Claim
Under Texas case law precedent there are two types of Title IX claims: (1) seeking to hold an institution liable for teacher-on-student or student-on-student sexual harassment and (2) challenging an institution’s official policy of intentional discrimination on the basis of sex. Murphy’s Title IX claim against NISD falls in the second category, meaning she is required to prove NISD “intentionally” discriminated against female student athletes based on their sex.
For a second time on this claim, the Court determined that Murphy’s claims were conclusory, stating that although “she alleged that NISD’s policies and practices constitute disparate treatment of female athletes, she fails to provide any facts that demonstrate that NISD’s actions in this case were in any way carried out because of [Murphy’s] gender. Instead, as was the situation in her first amended complaint, her second amended complaint…at most…demonstrate[ed] a discrepancy between sports.” Lacking any evidence to show that NISD failed to protect Murphy from injury on the basis of her sex, or that male students who were similarly situated were treated differently from her, the Court again dismissed Murphy’s Title IX claim.
In conclusion, expecting a third amended complaint would be no different than Murphy’s last two, the Court denied her leave to amend her complaint and for a second time the Court granted NISD’s motion to dismiss, ultimately dismissing Murphy’s case with prejudice.
