Legal issues affecting event management at colleges and universities
The term “event management” encompasses a wide variety of activities associated with universities and colleges. This outline is designed to serve as a checklist for varied legal issues which arise from such activities. Given the breadth and depth of the issues involved in event management, it is imperative that policies and procedures receive careful review by legal counsel – preferably before implementation.
Event at colleges and universities occur in the context of 1.) the institution’s mission, 2.) existing written and unwritten institutional policies and procedures, 3.) institutional resources, 4.) analysis of potential benefits balanced with potential risks. New situations often test the limits of an institution’s policies and procedures.
1. Areas of potential legal duty and liability
A. Duties arising from relationships. The law recognizes certain duties, under tort law, which arise from the nature of the relationship between individuals and institutions. If the duty created by the relationship is breached, the injured party may be awarded damages in a lawsuit. For institutions of higher education, persons who use institutional facilities can be classified generally in the following groups:
1. Students
2. Employees
3. Volunteers
4. Tenants- including students, faculty and other employees, conference attenders or others who are tenants in the institution’s premises.
5. Authorized visitors
6. Trespass
B. Legal classifications of relationships and resulting liability
Of course, an individual’s legal classification determines the risk which he presents to an institutions of higher education as the institution and the individual interact with one another. Courts consider whether the relationship between the injured person and the owner and controller or proprietor of property is one in which: a.) the injured party is allowed on the on the premises, but the sole benefit of his presence is to the injured person, who is thus a licensee and liability is for willful or wanton injury; b.) the relationship mutually benefits the parties, in which case the injured party is an invitee and the duty of the owner is higher—to exercise ordinary care; c.) the injured person is not invited to come onto the owner’s or proprietor’s property and his presence does not benefit the owner, rather he is a trespasser, in which case the owner or proprietor owes no duty to the injure party except to refrain from willful or wanton wrongdoing. Examples of these classifications as base for legal responsibility follow:
1. Duty to protect
a. From foreseeable acts of third parties on university and college property. Furek v. University of Delaware, The university owes a student as a business invitee a duty to protect by safeguarding him against foreseeable dangers occurred on university premises, including the duty to protest him from injuries, which the student received during fraternity hazing which occurred despite university statements that it stop. But see, Nola v. University of southern California, for a determination of no liability for the university in a case of a rape on campus by random attacker.
b. An a duty to provide a safe environment. In walker v. Daniels, a student drowned while participating in a recreational swimming event at Fort Valley State College, a Georgia public institution. The court held that, absent sovereign immunity from tort liability, a college or university has a duty to exercise ordinary and reasonable care for a student’s safety. In such a case, the student is an invitee. See Board of Regents v. Daniels, for a brief discussion of sovereign immunity. (reversed on other grounds)
2. Duty to provide adequate security. See Mullins v. Pine Manor College, Delaney v. university of Houston, Green v. Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, The university has a duty even when dormitory is leased from another entity. See Vangeli v. Schneider, for adequate security measures.
3. Duty to warn. Peterson v. San Francisco Community College District, Finding of breach of duty to warn student. See also, Pitre v. Louisiana Teach University, in which the court found a duty to warn and protect student against known specific danger represented by parking lot light poles when sledding in a particular location, particularly given the housing office’s encouragement of sledding on campus. But see nola M. v. University of southern California, supra. See also, Chapman v. City of Houston and the University of Houston, for a suit filed by a student who was injured in a fall from a bridge. The state university was immune from liability and there was no continuing obligation of state to post signs warning of alleged design defect in bridge.
4. Employees. State Workers’ compensation law families when employees are injured or killed in the course of their employment. The definition of what falls within the course of one’s employment can be varied and in dependent upon state law.
5. Volunteers who are invited onto college and university campuses have a relationship of mutual benefit to the college and university. The standard of care, therefore, is higher than it could be for a visitor allowed on institutional property for the visitor’s benefit.
6. Tenants. For colleges and universities with residence halls, courts have recognized a duty and standard of care which is tantamount or similar to the duty owed by landlords to tenants.
7. Authorized visitors. See Burch v. university of Kansas, university breached its duty to provide a safe environment because a grandmother fell in an unlighted stairway of a university residence hall while visiting her granddaughter, a resident. See also, Kline v. ohio university, which arose from the electrocution death of a subcontractor’s employee while working on asbestos removal for the university. The court determined him to be an “invitee” an a “frequenter” (and ohio statutory status) to whom was owed a duty to provide safe premises or to warn of known or should have known dangers—which was breached.
In Doelker v. ohio state university, the court ruled that a university consultant, with a relationship as an independent contractor, was a “licensee” , rather that an invitee, because, at the time that he walked into a large pane of glass immediately to the right of a door to a campus building, he was not on campus because of his business relationship with the university. Rather, he was there to visit persons temporarily residing on the campus. The court held that he had not been expressly invited on the campus at that time and the university did not derive any benefit from his presence on the campus. The university’s standard of care presents the opportunity for a plaintiff to have a more persuasive argument for a breach of duty and recompense for injury suffered. In this case the court determined that the facts were such that a higher standard of care would not have been helpful because of the plaintiff’s negligence.
8. Trespassers see Kline above for discussion of standard of care for trespassers.
c. Contractual relationships
1. Group activities, e.g. summer camp, symposia, workshops
2. Activities for individuals, e.g. music and art lessons
3. Relationships with adults and minors
a. Minors as college students and as non-student participants in various, approved activities.
4. Caveat. Any written document between representatives of the institution and other institutions, groups or individuals which describes promised services are contracts, irrespective of the form or the terminology use to describe the documents, e.g. memorandum of reservation. See appendix a to this outline for a list of considerations for contract documents.