The Wisconsin Court of Appeals has refused to follow a convicted child molester “down the rabbit hole” and allow her to sue the parents of the 13-year-old boy she assaulted for failing to protect him from her.

Ann Knopf

The boy and his father sued Ann Knopf, a former Prescott, Wisc., substitute teacher, in October 2008 after she pleaded guilty to assaulting the boy and was sentenced to nine months in jail. During a five-month relationship, she allegedly had sex with Jacob Brekken at her home while other members of her family slept.

The lawsuit alleged sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence. Knopf responded in extraordinary fashion — by filing a counterclaim against Jacob's father and a third-party complaint against his mother in which she accused them of contributory negligence.

In one pleading, Knopf's attorney, John P. Runde of Wausau, Wisc., reached the heights of chutzpah, suggesting Jacob's parents helped cause his injuries by trying to “find out for sure” who he was involved with rather than preventing him from having continued contacts with her.

Christopher and Cheryl Brekken, who are divorced, had intercepted their son's e-mail communications from someone calling herself “Mara S” after they began to suspect he was involved in an inappropriate relationship but did not cut off his e-mail access. Cheryl told police she wanted proof her son was involved with Knopf.

“The satisfaction of saying, 'I got you, Mara' and, 'I know it's you and I know it was you' is cold comfort for Jacob, who now has the experiences that are alleged to be causing him continual harm,” Runde said.

But in a Sept. 14 opinion, the Court of Appeals concluded that Knopf had failed to identify a negligent act and, as a matter of public policy, the Brekkens could not be held liable for a negligent failure to protect Jacob.

“Knopf’s assignment of blame to Jacob’s parents represents convoluted reasoning reminiscent of Lewis Carroll,” the court said. “We will not follow down the rabbit hole and open the door for a child molester to sue the victim’s parents for their failure to lock their child away or for their ineffectiveness in trying to stop the child from being sexually abused.”

Knopf was a substitute teacher at Prescott Middle School, where Jacob was a student. Her relationship with him began in January 2007 and his parents became suspicious after, among other things, they found an empty condom wrapper in his belongings.

Jacob's father installed spyware on his computer and, the appeals court noted, intercepted communications between him and an individual calling herself “Mara S” and “Island girl” that “suggested Jacob was surreptitiously meeting with someone for amorous purposes.”

The Brekkens “spoke on a daily basis about their investigations, but lacked complete certainty about who 'Mara S' and 'Island girl' were,” the court said.

Late on the night of May 17, 2007, Cheryl Brekken discovered Jacob was missing from home and called her ex-husband. He found her car near Knopf's home and, after confronting the teacher, called police. Jacob showed up a short time later “with the zipper of his jeans open.”

Knopf's lawyer claimed Jacob's parents were at fault for “allowing admittedly strange and disturbing contacts between their son and a person they suspected was Ann, who they knew to be mentally ill, to continue without efforts to contain or prevent those contacts."

“The circumstances in this case require that parents concerned about a 'weird' and potentially sexual relationship between their 13-year old son and an adult do more than simply try to find out who the person is,” Runde said.

But the appeals court affirmed a Pierce County Circuit Court judge who summarily dismissed her claims. “Although we rarely preclude liability on public policy grounds at the summary judgment stage,” the court ruled,

When a case is so extreme that it would shock the conscience of society to impose liability, the courts may step in and hold as a matter of law that there is no liability. As a matter of public policy, we cannot allow Knopf to defeat the deterrent effect of liability for the sexual assaults by shifting blame to others.

By Matthew Heller
9/19/10