A.J., a minor student, and her classmate S.J. were passengers on a school bus operated by First Student, Inc. (FSI) under contract with the local school district. Despite FSI’s internal policies prohibiting the practice, the bus driver dropped both girls off at a location more than 1.5 miles from A.J.’s designated stop and her home. The girls protested, but the driver insisted they exit. After unsuccessfully attempting to reach her grandmother for a ride, A.J. accepted a ride from S.J.’s father, Warren J. While driving the girls to his house, Warren allegedly suffered a medical emergency, lost control of the vehicle, and caused a multi-vehicle collision. The crash killed Warren and seriously injured both A.J. and S.J.
A.J., through her guardian ad litem, filed suit against FSI for negligence. She alleged that the company’s failure to follow its own safety policy regarding drop-off locations led directly to her being placed in a vulnerable position and forced to seek unsafe alternative transportation. FSI moved for summary judgment, arguing that its actions were not the proximate cause of A.J.’s injuries and that Warren’s conduct—specifically, his seizure and negligent driving—was an unforeseeable superseding cause that severed liability.
In support of its motion, FSI submitted testimony from a witness to the crash and from S.J. The witness described Warren running a red light at high speed before the collision, while S.J. recounted that Warren appeared to be having a seizure immediately prior to the crash. FSI argued that even if it had been negligent, the chain of causation had been broken by Warren’s unexpected medical episode, rendering the collision legally unforeseeable from the standpoint of FSI’s original conduct.
The trial court agreed, granting summary judgment for FSI. It found that although FSI’s actions were a factual cause of the collision, the connection was too attenuated to support legal liability. It emphasized that the types of injuries reasonably foreseeable from a student being dropped at the wrong stop might include abduction or exposure to extreme weather—not a fatal car crash caused by a driver’s medical event.
On appeal, the Court of Appeal disagreed and reversed. The Court reaffirmed that proximate cause under California law involves both factual causation and legal policy-based limitations. While factual causation was not contested on appeal, the Court held that the foreseeability of harm from FSI’s alleged negligence remained a triable question of fact. The Court emphasized that what must be foreseeable is not the precise mechanism of harm (such as Warren’s seizure), but the general nature of the injury—in this case, the risk of injury from being forced to find alternative transportation in a private vehicle.
The Court pointed to deposition testimony and policy documents indicating that both FSI and the school district recognized the dangers of dropping students at the wrong stop. FSI’s own training materials, along with testimony from its location manager and the district superintendent, acknowledged that students left in such a situation might resort to private rides and that private vehicles are inherently less safe than school buses. The Court reasoned that a jury could find it reasonably foreseeable that ejecting a child far from home would increase the risk of injury in precisely the type of scenario that occurred here.
Finally, the Court emphasized that internal policies and training materials, when supported by testimony and tied to specific safety rationales, may serve as evidence that a defendant recognized the risk of harm. The Court found that a jury could reasonably conclude that FSI’s own policies were designed to prevent exactly the kind of harm that occurred, and therefore supported the imposition of liability.
Accordingly, the Court of Appeal reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. It held that the issues of proximate causation and superseding cause were for the jury to decide, not the court.
A.J. J. v. First Student (Apr. 30, 2025) ___Cal.App.5th___ [2025 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 2660].
Note: Although this case involves a bus company, it highlights how internal policies and training documents, especially when tied to foreseeable risks such as the need to seek alternative transportation, can support negligence claims.