Beginning in 1999, Terence Greene worked as the dance director at Cleveland School of the Arts (CSA). In 2002, an allegation surfaced from a 14-year-old student that Greene sexually assaulted him. The allegation resulted in an indictment against Greene in September 2003, which was reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, a local newspaper. Greene was acquitted on all counts after a bench trial. After the acquittal, Greene continued to teach at CSA until 2014, when two former students came forward with allegations that Greene engaged in criminal sexual contact with him when he was their teacher. In September 2014, Greene was fired from his job at CSA.
In addition to the CSA students, in 2011, Greene’s nephew also made an allegation of improper sexual conduct dating back to 1985. No formal charges resulted from the allegations.
A year after he was terminated from CSA, in September 2015, Greene applied to Cuyahoga County Community College (Tri-C) for a job as a dance instructor in its Creative Arts Academy. Greene’s application stated that he left CSA because he “started his own company and pursued other job opportunities.”
After receiving Greene’s application, Human Resources requested a basic background check on Greene from a third-party screening company, which indicated that Greene left CSA because “he was terminated.” Regarding his eligibility for rehire, the report said “No. The subject had allegations with students,” and contained a comment that “we have received a negative response regarding the subject’s reason for leaving and/or eligibility for re-hire.”
Despite the warning, Tri-C hired Greene.
John Doe enrolled in the dance program in Tri-C’s Creative Arts Academy in 2015, when he was around 13 or 14 years old. The program was a daily, after-school program and when John Doe was promoted to the intermediate level in 2018, Greene became his primary dance instructor. John Doe alleged that, in 2019, Greene sexually assaulted Doe one evening after rehearsal. Within days, Doe quit the program and quit dancing.
Sometime in January 2020, Doe revealed the incident to his high school advisor, who reported the assault to Child Protective Services and Doe’s mother. Doe’s mother filed a police report and Tri-C promptly terminated Greene’s employment.
John Doe filed a complaint against Tri-C and three administrators, asserting breach of contract and gross negligence, including negligence on the administrators’ failure to review the background check on Greene.
John Doe later amended his complaint to assert gross negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against three Tri-C dance teachers who worked with Greene, alleging that they had knowledge of Greene’s past sexual assaults on minor children and therefore had knowledge or cause to suspect that children under his care as a teacher would face future abuse. Doe argued that the teachers failed to undertake any investigation or take any action in response to their knowledge and therefore breached their duty to protect Doe’s safety.
Two of the dance teachers moved to dismiss the claims, arguing that Doe’s complaint did not indicate that they had knowledge of Greene’s prior misconduct. The trial court denied the dance teachers’ motion and the teachers appealed.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals considered whether Doe’s complaint adequately pleaded that the teachers had knowledge of Green’s misconduct, which is a necessary foundation to trigger their duty to act.
The teachers argued that Doe’s claim for gross negligence was vague—it only said the teachers had individual specific knowledge of Greene’s past sexual assault of minor children, which was not enough to show their level of knowledge required them to act. The Court of Appeals disagreed. The Court considered that Greene’s indictment regarding his sexual offenses against his student at CSA in 2003 was reported in the local newspaper and he began teaching at Tri-C Creative Arts Academy in 2015, a year after he was terminated from his job at CSA. Construing these facts and all reasonable inferences in John Doe’s favor, the Court determined that Doe had plead enough to withstand the motion to dismiss.
The teachers also argued that Doe’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress was not particular enough. The Court of Appeals disagreed again, finding that if the teachers knew of Greene’s history with minors, their failure to take action could be considered outrageous and intolerable, and the resulting emotional distress would be such that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling.
Doe v. Cuyahoga Cnty. Cmty. Coll. (Ct.App.) 2024-Ohio-3113.
Note: This case is still in the early stages and this opinion only covers the pleading standard for the claims related to the dance teachers. Nonetheless, it is an important reminder that employees with possible knowledge of a coworker’s criminal past can result in the employee’s own liability. LCW will continue to monitor this case, including the outcome for the administrators that hired the employee despite the background check findings.