Doe v. Kimmel
- Jesse Furman
- 1:24-cv-03201
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
In Doe v. Kimmel, Judge Furman granted in part and denied in part the NYCDOE’s dismissal motion, dismissing state claims but preserving the federal claim.
Jane Doe’s state-law claims against the New York City Department of Education were dismissed as untimely, while her federal equal-protection claim against the Department remains pending. The claims against Brett Kimmel were not resolved by this order.
What happened
In Doe v. Kimmel, Jane Doe alleges that Brett Kimmel sexually abused her while he was principal of her high school from 2013 through 2015. She sued Kimmel and the New York City Department of Education, asserting a federal equal-protection claim against the Department and state-law claims against both defendants.
The Department argued that Doe filed her claims too late. Doe argued that her federal claim was timely because she did not learn about the Department’s alleged policy of failing to address sexual abuse until 2024. She also argued that a New York law allowing people abused as children to sue until age 55 applied to her state-law claims.
Judge Jesse M. Furman granted in part and denied in part the Department’s motion to dismiss. He dismissed Doe’s state-law claims against the Department as untimely, but denied dismissal of her federal claim because the complaint did not clearly show that the limitations period had expired. The federal claim therefore remains pending.
The detailed version
- Doe v. Kimmel · No. 1:24-cv-03201
- Jesse Furman
- Jan. 30, 2025
Background
Jane Doe, proceeding under a pseudonym, sued the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and Brett Kimmel. The complaint alleges that Doe attended the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, where Kimmel was principal, and that he sexually abused her almost daily from 2013 through 2015. Kimmel filed an answer. The NYCDOE moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a claim, arguing that Doe’s claims against the Department were untimely.
Doe initially sued the NYCDOE and Kimmel under New York law on April 26, 2024. Her amended complaint, filed October 16, 2024, added a federal claim against the NYCDOE under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She alleges that the Department maintained a widespread and persistent policy, custom, or practice of deliberate indifference to sex-based discrimination, including sexual harassment and abuse by school staff.
Federal Claim
The court held that the federal claim could not be dismissed as untimely at the pleading stage. A § 1983 claim against a municipality or municipal agency based on a policy or custom generally accrues when the plaintiff knows or should know that the injury resulted from that policy or custom, rather than merely when the harmful conduct occurred.
Doe expressly alleged that she did not learn about the Department’s alleged unconstitutional practices until after February 26, 2024, when a former WHEELS teacher allegedly told her that teachers had not received adequate training, or any training, on identifying and reporting suspected sexual abuse by Department staff. The NYCDOE pointed to government reports from 2016 and 2019, but the court concluded that the complaint alone did not establish when Doe knew or should have known about the alleged municipal policy. The court therefore denied the NYCDOE’s motion to dismiss the federal claim.
State-Law Claims
The court separately addressed Doe’s negligence and New York City Human Rights Law claims against the NYCDOE. The parties agreed that the original filing deadlines were October 2016 for the negligence claims and July 2018 for the Human Rights Law claim.
The court assumed without deciding that the Child Victims Act’s revival provision, New York Civil Practice Law and Rules § 214-g, applied to Doe’s state-law claims. It concluded, however, that the deadline for using that revival provision was March 30, 2022, as extended because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Doe did not file this lawsuit until 2024.
Doe instead relied on § 208(b), which permits certain claims based on sexual offenses committed against children to be filed until the plaintiff reaches age 55. The court agreed with the NYCDOE that § 208(b) applies prospectively and does not revive claims that were already time barred when the Child Victims Act took effect. The court held that Doe’s state-law claims against the NYCDOE were therefore barred by the applicable time limits.
Disposition
The court granted in part and denied in part the NYCDOE’s motion to dismiss. It granted the motion as to Doe’s state-law claims against the NYCDOE and denied it as to her federal claim. The court declined to grant Doe permission to amend the state-law claims because it concluded that amendment could not cure the timing problems. Unless the court ordered otherwise, the NYCDOE was required to answer the remaining claim within two weeks of the opinion and order. The opinion does not state that the dismissed claims were dismissed with or without prejudice.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.