No Proof of Prior Bad Acts

S.M. v. Los Angeles Unified School District - filed September 16, 2015, Second District, Div. Five Cite as 2015 S.O.S. 4466

Trial court erred in instructing jury that plaintiff, who was engaged in a sexual relationship with a teacher while attending middle school, was required to prove that teacher had a "propensity" toward sexual misconduct. Because no proof of prior bad acts is required, the instruction should have told jurors that defendant may have been negligent if it failed to appropriately supervise the teacher even though it knew or should have known that he had the "potential" to engage in such misconduct. Trial court erred in allowing jury to consider plaintiff’s sexual history and her alleged "consent" to an illicit sexual relationship with teacher as a defense to plaintiff’s claim that district’s negligence allowed the relationship to occur. Instruction limiting the use of sexual history to consideration of damages did not cure the error where it was mentioned throughout the trial and contrasted with teacher’s supposed lack of prior sexual misconduct. Full text http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0915//B253983