Jane Doe began attending Mercy High School, an all-girls private school in Baltimore, as a freshman in 2016. At the time, she was a recently immigrated 14-year-old girl from Honduras. According to Doe’s complaint, the School hired assistant track coach Ernest Jackson based solely on a personal recommendation from an administrator and failed to comply with its own hiring policies or state law regarding background checks. Doe alleged that Jackson sexually abused her during her freshman and junior years. When the abuse was eventually reported, Mercy High School allegedly failed to follow its own child protection policy—modeled on the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s standards—and retaliated against Doe.
Doe brought suit against multiple entities, including the School, its Board of Trustees, its asset management arm, and two related organizations: the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas (SOM) and the Mercy Education System of the Americas (MESA). The suit asserted that SOM and MESA were not merely religious sponsors but contractual overseers of the School’s Board and policies and were therefore responsible for failing to protect her. The Complaint alleged that SOM and MESA exercised significant control over Mercy High School through a “Covenant” that granted them reserved governance powers, including approving school policy and ensuring that the School fulfilled its mission of providing a “Mercy Education”—a concept that explicitly includes nonviolence and the prevention of abuse.
Doe brought ten claims in total, including Title IX violations, negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty. Relevant here, SOM and MESA moved to dismiss Counts IX (negligence) and X (breach of fiduciary duty) for failure to state a claim. They argued that Doe lacked standing to sue them because she was not a party to the Covenant, and that they owed her no legal duty.
The Court denied the motion to dismiss, finding that Doe plausibly alleged both a duty of care and a fiduciary duty owed by SOM and MESA.
On the negligence claim, the Court reaffirmed its conclusion from another decision in the same case that a duty may arise from a contract even where the plaintiff is not a party, if the duty would not exist but for the contractual relationship. The Court found that Doe sufficiently alleged that SOM and MESA undertook contractual obligations via the Covenant that included oversight of Mercy High School’s Board of Trustees and implementation of policies to prevent abuse. The Court emphasized that in the school context, Maryland courts have long held that institutions owe a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect students from harm. Doe alleged that SOM and MESA accepted and exercised authority over Mercy High School’s policies and agreed to provide a “Mercy Education,” and were therefore obligated to ensure that the School fulfilled its commitment to providing a safe environment.
The Court rejected SOM and MESA’s argument that Doe had to be a direct party to the Covenant in order to enforce a tort duty arising from it. Drawing on Maryland precedent, the Court noted that third parties may assert tort claims where duties flow from contracts intended, at least in part, for their benefit. Doe’s allegations that SOM and MESA undertook governance and oversight responsibilities with full awareness of their duty to prevent abuse of students, particularly given their public commitment to “nonviolence” as part of the Mercy Education, were sufficient at the pleading stage to survive dismissal.
As to the fiduciary duty claim, the Court held that Doe also plausibly alleged the existence of a fiduciary relationship between herself and SOM and MESA. A fiduciary duty arises where one party has a special obligation to act for the benefit of another. The Court emphasized that fiduciary relationships can be created by contract. Here, it found Doe’s allegations that MESA and SOM had authority over the School’s direction and policies, including those directly related to student safety, were sufficient to plausibly establish such a duty. It also found that whether a fiduciary duty existed was a fact question that could not be resolved on a motion to dismiss. The Court noted that it had previously permitted breach of fiduciary duty claims to proceed alongside negligence claims where the factual basis overlapped.
The Court denied the motion to dismiss, allowing both the negligence and breach of fiduciary duty claims to proceed to discovery.
Doe v. Mercy High School, Inc. (D. Md. July 3, 2025) 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126600.
Note: LCW covered this case previously. This case highlights that when organizations exercise control over school governance, they may owe a duty of care or a fiduciary duty to students, potentially exposing them to liability even if they are not the direct school operator.