School-District Immunity Turns on Location of Negligent Act

Wednesday, July 15, 2026

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Court of Appeal:

School-District Immunity Turns on Location of Negligent Act

Opinion Declines to Follow Cases That Interpreted Liability Bar to Apply Anytime Harm Occurs Off-Campus, Says Claims Asserting Remote Injuries Based on On-Site Negligence May Survive Statutory Bar

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that a public educational district may be liable for harm occurring off-campus and unrelated to officially sanctioned activities, despite a California law providing immunity for conduct occurring “when [a] pupil is not on school property,” if the plaintiff can point to an on-site negligent act that led to her injuries.

At issue is Education Code §44808, which provides:

“[N]o school district…shall be responsible or in any way liable for the conduct or safety of any pupil of the public schools at any time when such pupil is not on school property, unless such district…has undertaken to provide transportation for such pupil to and from the school premises, has undertaken a school-sponsored activity off the premises of such school, has otherwise specifically assumed such responsibility or liability or has failed to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances.”

Acting Presiding Justice Douglas P. Miller authored Monday’s opinion, acknowledging that two previous decisions by Div. Two—the 2005 case Mosley v. San Bernardino City Unified School District and the 2021 matter Leroy v. Yarboi—focused solely on where the injury occurred as determinative of whether the liability shield applies.

However, he opined that the decisions misapply California Supreme Court precedent to find that the plaintiffs’ claims were statutorily barred under the Education Code.

Joining in the opinion were Justices Richard T. Fields and Michael J. Raphael, the latter of whom penned a concurring opinion to elaborate on his support for the court’s interpretation.

Complaint Filed

The question arose after Victoria Magistrale filed a complaint against Victor Valley Union High School District and Mark Anthony Lizama, a former math teacher at Silverado High School who also served as a leader for the campus’ Reserve Officers’ Training Cadet Corps (“ROTC”) program, in November 2022.

Relying on Code of Civil Procedure §340.1, which extends the statute of limitations for childhood sexual assault, Magistrale asserted that the district was negligent and failed to protect her from being assaulted off-campus by Lizama on three occasions between 1999 and 2001. She alleged that the abuse began after she accepted Lizama’s offer to give her a ride to meet up with her family members following an ROTC practice she attended when she was 15 years old.

She claimed that the pair “said goodbye to the office lady” as they left campus together before Lizama took her to his house, gave her two shots of liquor, and exposed himself. According to the plaintiff, she agreed to meet up with him two more times, and, on one occasion, he drove her to a remote area in the desert and refused to let her leave if she did not engage in sexual activity.

After the district moved for summary judgment, citing §44808, Magistrale opposed the motion. She argued that the immunity shield does not apply due to the school’s negligence in allowing her to leave campus with the teacher. In June 2025, San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Erickson agreed with Magistrale, saying that the plaintiff had raised a triable issue about “whether District negligently supervised [Student] while she was on campus or being instructed by or interacting with [Teacher.]” In response, the district filed a petition for a writ of mandate, seeking relief from the order, the following month.

Supreme Court Decision

Miller cited the 1978 California Supreme Court decision in Hoyem v. Manhattan Beach City School District, which held that a trial court erred in ruling that the defendant was not liable to a mother and her son over injuries incurred when the student was hit by a car after walking off campus before the end of the instructional day. That court declared:

“[W]e have concluded that the trial court was in error and that, if plaintiffs can prove that the pupil’s injury was proximately caused by the school district’s negligent supervision, the district may be held liable for the resultant damages.”

Finding the circumstances to be analogous to Magistrale’s allegations, Miller wrote:

“In the instant case, as in Hoyem, the alleged negligent act occurred on campus, while the injury occurred off campus….The evidence that a teacher openly escorted a student through campus, past another employee, into a parking lot, into his personal vehicle, and transported her off campus, without any measures in place to prevent such conduct could give one reason to conclude the District’s ‘supervisory procedures fell below that degree of care which reasonably prudent persons would exercise.’…Because the alleged negligent act occurred on campus, the District has not demonstrated that it qualifies for immunity.”

Liability Versus Immunity

Addressing an assertion “that we were incorrectly relying on Hoyem’s liability analysis, when the District’s contention is focused on immunity,” he said:

“[I]f one compares the section of the opinion that the District labels the ‘liability’ section to the portion the District labels the ‘immunity’ section, there is no difference in result….Contrary to defendant’s assertion, no California decision suggests that when a school district fails to properly supervise a student on school premises, the district can automatically escape liability simply because the student’s ultimate injury occurs off school property.”

He reasoned that some of the decisions relied upon by the defendant, including the 2025 opinion by this district’s Div. Three in Taylor v. Los Angeles Unified School District, respected “Hoyem’s distinction between the location of the negligent act and the location of the resulting injury.” However, he remarked that “two prior opinions from this court failed to do so.”

Miller wrote that “we decline to follow” Mosley and LeRoy and declared that “[t]he writ petition is denied.”

In 2008, Lizama was convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and other offenses based on Magistrale’s allegations.

Raphael’s View

Raphael noted that §44808 ends with the phrase “or has failed to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances,” quoting the language in italics. He commented:

“Here, we are presented with two choices for what the italicized words mean. One (the plaintiff’s view) is that they state that a school district can be liable for harm off school property if caused by the school district’s negligent conduct. That is, the italicized words describe a basis for liability for off-campus damages. The second (the district’s view) is that the italicized words allow liability only when the district assumes responsibility for pupils’ conduct off school property.”

Saying that “[t]he first view reflects the provision’s text,” he opined:

“A sentence reading ‘…unless X or Y’ makes X and Y independent exceptions. Read naturally, section 44808 imposes no liability for off-campus harm unless the district either assumes responsibility or fails to exercise reasonable care. That is, the failure to exercise reasonable care is a separate basis for liability from assuming responsibility.”

The jurist argued that a contrary reading “conflates two kinds of liability that section 44808 treats differently: vicarious liability for an employee’s off-campus conduct and direct liability for the district’s own negligence” and said:

“Our Supreme Court has said that if a district has not exercised reasonable care, the section’s immunity ‘evaporates.’ Unless the Supreme Court says otherwise, we should take it at its word.”

The case is Victor Valley Union High School District v. Superior Court (Magistrale), 2026 S.O.S. 2033.