Report of suspected sexual grooming constitutes actual notice of sexual harassment

On January 7, 2025, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to employers in West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina) found that a student-athlete pleaded a viable sexual harassment claim by his university’s director of sports medicine, Robert Murphy. The district court, whose opinion the 4th Circuit vacated, had dismissed the complaint before trial, finding the allegations of facts didn’t support an inference that the university had actual notice of the alleged sexual harassment.

The student had alleged that several years earlier, the university’s head soccer coach had told the senior associate athletic director he suspected Murphy was engaging in “sexual grooming of male student-athletes.” The 4th Circuit engaged in a discussion of the meaning of “sexual grooming” and determined that the head soccer coach’s report gave the university actual notice or actual knowledge of alleged sexual harassment, and thus the complaint stated a viable sexual abuse claim and deliberate indifference on the part of the university.

Facts

The student-athlete, who filed suit under the name John Doe, attended the university from 2020 to 2021, while Murphy was director of sports medicine and a licensed athletic trainer. At this stage of litigation, the court assumed the allegations of fact contained in the complaint were accurate so it could determine whether the claims were sufficient to go to trial.