Wyke v. Polk County School Board

Shawn Wyke was a 13-year-old student in a Polk County public school (school). During one school day, another student at the school walked in on Shawn attempting to hang himself in a school restroom with a football jersey. The other student left the restroom with Shawn. When the other student got home, he told his mother about the incident. The mother called the school’s dean of students, who told her he would take care of the matter. The dean counseled Shawn in his office but did not call Shawn’s mother to report the incident. On another school day, a custodian noticed that Shawn, whom she did not know, was taking an unusually long time to return from the restroom. When the custodian went to check on Shawn, Shawn left the restroom and commented that had he stayed in the restroom any longer, he would have killed himself. The custodian reported to the vice principal that a student had spoken to her about killing himself, but the vice principal did not act on the information. In the days following these events, Shawn committed suicide. Shawn’s mother, Carol Wyke (plaintiff), sued the Polk County School Board (school board) (defendant) under several theories of liability. Among other claims, Carol brought a state-law negligence claim, arguing that the school had a duty to notify her of her son’s suicide attempts and that the school’s failure to do so was causally related to Shawn’s death. The trial court allowed the negligence claim to go to a jury, which found the school board to be liable. On this issue, the school board appealed, arguing that the district court should have found, as a matter of law, that the district had no duty to notify Carol of Shawn’s suicide attempts.