Highest Court in Massachusetts Sides With MIT in Student Suicide Lawsuit

September 1, 2018

In a significant ruling for MIT and all of higher education, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled in May that MIT, two of its professors, and a student support dean were not responsible for the 2009 suicide of a Sloan graduate student, Han Nguyen.  In ruling for MIT, the SJC recognized a very limited legal duty of universities and their non-clinician employees to take measures to protect against student self-harm, but found that the duty was not triggered in this case.

Background

The following information appears in publicly-available court filings.

At the time of his death, Han Nguyen was a 25-year old Ph.D. student in the Sloan Marketing program.  During his time at MIT he saw nine different off-campus, non-MIT mental health providers.  None of these providers considered Mr. Nguyen at imminent risk of suicide at any time during his time at MIT.

In 2007, Mr. Nguyen sought support from Student Disability Services, Student Support Services (S3), and MIT Mental Health & Counseling (MH&C) for test-taking anxiety.  Although he disclosed to S3 and MH&C two earlier suicide attempts while an undergraduate at Stanford and a history of depression, he denied that he was suicidal at the time, and made it clear that “I’d like to keep the fact of my depression separate from my academic problems.”

Mr. Nguyen struggled academically.  Although two of his professors were concerned about Mr. Nguyen, and knew that he was being treated off campus, they knew nothing about his prior suicide attempts, nor did he ever tell them he was suicidal.

The Lawsuit and the SJC’s Decision

In 2011, two years after his death, Mr. Nguyen’s father sued in state court, raising claims of negligence, contract, and other tort claims.  In October 2016 the lower court ruled that the defendants did not have a duty to prevent Mr. Nguyen’s death and dismissed all of the claims against the defendants.  Mr. Nguyen’s father appealed.

The SJC unanimously upheld the lower court’s decision dismissing the claims.  In its ruling, the SJC confirmed that there is no general legal duty to prevent another from committing suicide.  Furthermore, although universities are not mere bystanders or strangers in regard to their students, they also are not responsible for monitoring and controlling all aspects of their students’ lives.  The court observed that the university-student relationship is respectful of student autonomy and privacy, and universities do not act “in loco parentis” (in the place of a parent) to their students.

However, the SJC stated there are certain circumstances where “a university has a special relationship with a student and a corresponding duty to take reasonable measures to prevent…suicide.”  Those circumstances are when a university has actual knowledge of (1) a student’s attempted suicide while enrolled at the university or recently before matriculation or (2) a student’s stated plans or intentions to commit suicide.

The SJC was very clear that the circumstances that give rise to this legal duty are “limited.”  The court stated that a duty is not triggered by a university’s knowledge of a student’s suicidal ideation without a stated plan or intention to act on such thoughts.

The court further held that when the duty is triggered, a school must take “reasonable measures under the circumstances to protect the student from self-harm.”  The court stated the duty to take reasonable measures can be satisfied by following the university’s “suicide prevention protocol,” if it has developed such a protocol.  If a school does not have a protocol, the duty can be satisfied by contacting the appropriate officials at the university empowered to assist the student in obtaining clinical care or, if the student refuses such care, notifying the student’s emergency contact.  Finally, in an emergency situation, reasonable measures would also involve calling the police, fire, or emergency medical personnel.

Despite recognizing this limited duty, the court found that Mr. Nguyen “never communicated by words or actions to any MIT employee that he had stated plans or intentions to commit suicide, and any prior suicide attempts occurred well over a year before matriculation.”  As a result, there was no legal duty created in this case.  Moreover, the court found that the S3 dean took appropriate steps to encourage Mr. Nguyen to seek professional help, which he refused.  Under those circumstances, Mr. Nguyen’s rights to privacy, autonomy, and self-determination were properly respected.  For these reasons, the SJC unanimously found that the claims against all of the MIT defendants were properly dismissed.

Conclusion

Based on this ruling, if you are a member of MIT’s faculty or staff and you know that a student attempted suicide while at MIT or recently before attending MIT, or if you know that a student has a specific plan or intention to die by suicide, you must take steps to assist them in obtaining clinical care through Mental Health & Counseling.  You can make this connection directly or with assistance from other helping resources like Student Support Services, the Office of Graduate Education, or the CARE Team.  Of course, even if this legal duty is not triggered, you should seek guidance from these resources whenever you are concerned about a student’s wellbeing.

Contact information for these and other helpful campus resources is listed below: