Plaintiff Angela Tennant brought her son Micah and his sister to a playoff football game at Pleasantville High School. Sometime after halftime, defendant Alvin Wyatt arrived at the game with an illegal firearm. He then fired shots at Ibn Abdullah in retribution for a prior shooting incident in which Abdullah shot at Wyatt and Wyatt’s cousin died in connection with that shooting. Micah was struck by one of Wyatt’s bullets and died 5 days later. The issue in Tennant v. Pleasantville Board of Education, 2026 N.J. Super. LEXIS 77 (App. Div. Aug. 10, 2026), was whether the Pleasantville Board of Education could be held liable for Micah’s death based upon a state-created danger theory.
The playoff game was between Pleasantville High School (“PHS”) and Camden High School. Micah and his sister were not students at the Pleasantville School District. The family bought tickets when they arrived at the beginning of the third quarter of the game.
PHS had a security plan for the football game. It increased the normal assignment of 3 Pleasantville police officers to 6 officers, assisted by a K-9 unit. The officers were strategically positioned around the perimeter of the field and the bleachers. Additionally, PHS had 7 event staff in the parking lot, entrance, end zone and concession stand. Camden Police also had at a minimum of 2 officers and several additional security personnel to assist. Attendees to the game were only permitted to bring in a bag no larger than the size of a small purse. However, metal detectors were not used, as they were not used at any PHS sporting events.
Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against PHS claiming that there was no metal detector at the entrance to the field and the Board of Education failed to take appropriate safety measures. Plaintiff relied upon a theory that a state actor can be found civilly liable under the New Jersey Civil Rights Act and the New Jersey Constitution under a state-created danger theory.
The New Jersey Supreme Court had previously recognized this theory of liability in the case of Gormley v. Wood-El, 218 N.J. 72 (2014). In that case, the plaintiff, a public defender, had been brutally attacked while visiting an involuntarily committed client at Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, a state run hospital. The Court found that evidence showed that the defendants had acted with deliberate indifference for the plaintiff’s safety, given the number of assaults that had occurred against attorneys at Ancora.
The Board of Education’s motion for summary judgment was denied by the trial court based upon Gormley. The trial court found that the Board of Education created a dangerous condition by failing to screen attendees for weapons at the football game.
However, after reviewing the evidence, the Appellate Division disagreed with that decision, finding that Plaintiff had not demonstrated that the Board of Education “created a danger which would expose it to liability and permit an exception from the well-established precedent that a person does not have a constitutional right to have a state actor protect them from criminal misconduct of another.”
The Appellate Division looked at the 4 part test applied in Gormley to determine if there was sufficient evidence of a state-created danger so as to preclude a summary judgment to the Board of Education. It focused on two prongs, whether the Board’s failure to install metal detectors to screen attendees constituted “deliberate indifference” that “shocked the conscience” and whether defendants affirmatively used their authority in a way to create a danger to Micah.
The Court concluded that Plaintiff had not presented the egregious totality of circumstances to meet the conscience shocking factor. Although the city of Pleasantville was generally considered a high crime area and there were acts of violence at the high school, it noted that “could unfortunately describe and pertain to an infinite number of situations in this or any state.” There was no evidence of prior violence at the football field or any prior PHS football game.
Further, unlike Ancora in the Gormley case, the Board of Education had implemented a safety plan, took precautions and attempted to ensure the safety of its attendees. The Appellate Division noted the strong security presence of police officers, which precluded a finding of deliberate indifference and disregard for constitutional rights.
Additionally, the Court held that the Board of Education did not take any affirmative action to establish a protocol or policy that increased the risk to Micah. The failure to install metal detectors did not qualify as an “affirmative action” to increase the risk of harm to Plaintiff.
Hence, the Appellate Division disagreed with the trial court’s decision denying the Board of Education’s summary judgment motion. It found that the Plaintiff failed to satisfy the standard to establish a state-created danger theory of liability to hold the Pleasantville Board of Education responsible for a private actor’s criminal misconduct and Plaintiff’s resulting damages. Thus, the trial court’s decision denying summary judgment was reversed.
