Because of these distinctions, I would be reluctant to deny immunity to these defendants even if the plaintiff were Ms. Grove and Wright's assault on her had followed her complaint about him. We need not decide that issue, however. It is one thing to hold that a public school administrator has a duty to protect a particular student within his or her jurisdiction whom he or she knows to be in particular jeopardy. It is another to hold that there is an affirmative duty to protect an individual in a position like that of Stoneking, whom the administrator had no reason to believe was any more at risk from sexually aggressive teachers than her female classmates.
The court points to nothing that should have made the leap between these two propositions apparent to these school administrators. Indeed, authorities relied upon by the court suggest that there is no duty to protect in the absence of notice that a particular individual is in peril. In
Jensen v. Conrad, for example, the court described its prior caselaw on special relationships as having held such relationships existed “with respect to inmates in the state's prisons or patients in its mental institutions
whom the state knows to be under specific risk of harm from themselves or others in the state's custody or subject to its effective control.”
747 F.2d at 193 (emphasis supplied). And in
Estate of Bailey, we held that a special relationship and concomitant affirmative constitutional duty arises where a state social services agency is aware that
a particular child has been abused.
See also Wood v. Ostrander, 851 F.2d 1212, 1216–19 (9th Cir.1988) (holding that a police officer was not entitled to qualified immunity where he had arrested Wood's male companion, taken the car keys, and left Wood stranded in a high-crime area five miles from her home at 2:30 a.m., and reasonably should have been aware of the danger to Wood);
White v. Rochford, 592 F.2d 381, 383–86 (7th Cir.1979) (holding that police officers were not entitled to qualified immunity where they had arrested the uncle of three minor children, leaving the children stranded in the car on a busy eight-lane expressway, and could not have avoided knowing of the danger to the children).