On January 15, 2009, Wade Frogley signed a one-year contract for the 2008-2009 school year as an Assistant Principal at Mountain View High School in the Meridian School District. Frogley began his position as Assistant Principal on July 31, 2008. Frogley’s duties as assistant principal included attending various meetings; observing and evaluating teachers; supervising students in a variety of situations; disciplining students; and enforcing the student dress code.
Frogley alleges that within weeks of commencing his job at Mountain View High School, he was subject to continuous sexual harassment. Two weeks after beginning work, Frogley alleges that while attending an administrators meeting with Principal Aaron Maybon and three other assistant principals, Maybon’s assistant slid an envelope addressed to Frogley under the door. The envelope contained a fake wedding announcement claiming that Frogley was about to marry a “Cheap Two-Bit Tramp.” Frogley’s face was imposed on a picture of a groom and a scantily clad bride. Frogley asserts that Maybon admitted to having his secretary prepare and deliver the envelope.
During the first week of lunch meetings, because Frogley had more food than anyone else, Maybon commented that Frogley was having sex with the lunch servers in exchange for food. Frogley maintains that Maybon and the other administrators made comments of him exchanging sexual favors for food on a near daily basis. Despite Frogley’s alleged objections to these comments, the comments did not stop.
Frogley maintains that throughout his employment comments were made with respect to how many women he was dating; the number of women with whom Frogley had sex; how many women with whom he was involved at the same time; whether his sexual preference was for women or men; and whether he was leaving school during lunch to have sex.
On October 23, 2008, Frogley had lunch with a visiting principal and was allegedly questioned by Maybon about whether he had sex with the visiting principal when Frogley returned from lunch. Also during October of 2008, Frogley alleges that administrators were referencing his office as a “nest of whores.” Later that month, when Frogley did not volunteer to supervise a basketball game, school administrators allegedly commented that Frogley was probably going on a date, possibly with more than one woman, and Maybon allegedly suggested that Frogley might be homosexual. Frogley claims he objected to the statements.
Fogley was eventually terminated from his job.
The trial court granted the school district’s motion for summary judgment dismissing Fogley’s lawsuit. However, the Supreme Court of Idaho reversed, and remanded the case back to trial. In addition to addressing the wrongful termination case, the Supreme Court held that Fogley was entitled to a trial on his claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Court restated Idaho law on the intentional infliction of emotional distress:
The elements of negligent infliction of emotional distress are (1) a legal duty recognized by law; (2) a breach of that duty; (3) a causal connection between the defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s injury; and (4) actual loss or damage. Additionally, there must be a physical manifestation of the plaintiff’s emotional injury, which is designed to provide a degree of genuineness that claims of mental harm are not imagined. Every person “has a duty to exercise ordinary care to prevent, unreasonable, foreseeable risks of harm to others.” Generally, it is not foreseeable that insulting and demeaning remarks could inflict serious emotional harm….
However, liability may arise where the conduct caused harm to a susceptible or frail individual and the defendant was aware of this condition