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The city of Boston is immune from liability for a shooting that took place at a city school in 2022 even though the school’s improper use of its metal detectors allowed the shooter to enter the school with a firearm.

A Massachusetts Appeals Court has upheld a Superior Court judge in finding the city immune under state law and dismissing the claims against the city because its improper use of metal detectors was not the “original cause” of the injuries suffered by the shooting victims who sued the city.

Under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act (MTCA), public employers are liable for negligence of their employees subject to certain exceptions. The law provides that a public employer is not liable for “any claim based on an act or failure to act to prevent or diminish the harmful consequences of a condition or situation, including the violent or tortious conduct of a third person, which is not originally caused by the public employer or any other person acting on behalf of the public employer.”

In considering whether a public employer was the “original cause” of harm, Massachusetts courts have developed a two-part test. First, the defendant “must have taken an affirmative action; a failure to act will not suffice. Second, the defendant’s act must “materially contribute to creating the specific ‘condition or situation’ that resulted in the harm.”

The Jeremiah Burke High School has metal detectors at its front entrance, but they are not properly used after 8:30 a.m. The shooter exited the school with a firearm, which he had possessed in the school without it being detected as a result of the failure of the metal detectors to be properly used.

When student Marque’e Dorsey was exiting the school to meet his mother and three-year old sister, the shooter opened fire on them, shooting repeatedly and chasing them. They jumped out of the car while it was moving. Dorsey suffered two gunshot wounds to the upper abdomen and was rushed to a hospital, critically ill. He underwent surgery, remained hospitalized for 16 days, and has since required ongoing treatment. Though his mother and sister were not directly struck by gunfire, they too experienced trauma and have struggled emotionally since the shooting.

The family sued, alleging that the city and school officials negligently subjected them to gun violence on school property, negligently failed to supervise the shooter, and negligently inflicted emotional distress.

However, their claims were dismissed by a Superior Court judge who concluded that the exceptions set forth in the MTCA applied in the case. The judge allowed the city’s motion to dismiss, ruling that under the MTCA the city and school were immune from liability because the violent conduct of the shooter was not “originally caused” by them, and their choices pertaining to security measures at the school were “discretionary functions” involving policy making.

The family appealed. In the appeal, the family argued that the allegation that their metal detectors “are not properly used” after 8:30 a.m. established that the city’s conduct was the original cause of the shooting. They maintained that the school “took the affirmative act of deciding to place metal detectors at the entrance of the school and then decided to only use them before 8:30 a.m.”

The appeals court was not persuaded, citing past cases including one involving the stabbing of a student and another involving serious bullying and shoving of a student down a stairwell where the courts found public employers were protected by immunity.

Just as the school’s failure to keep the assailant who stabbed the student out of the school and the school’s failure to protect the student from the assailant who pushed a student down the stairs did not amount to the original causes of those harms, here the public employer defendants’ failure to detect the gun possessed by the shooter was not the original cause of the plaintiffs’ injuries.

“Effectively, the plaintiffs seek to hold the school liable for not acting in a manner that ensured the plaintiffs’ safety. Such a claim is precluded under the act,” the appeals court stated in affirming the dismissal of the claims against the city.

Topics K-12