Student Suicide and University Responsibility in Law
A critical reading of David Sykes, “The Legal Relationship Between Universities and Their Students – How Accountable and to What Extent in Law Are Universities Liable for Student Suicides?”, Denning Law Journal (2024) Vol 33, pp. 41–78.
Author: Robert Abrahart
Framing the question
Much of the current debate about a statutory duty of care for universities turns on a deceptively simple claim: that universities already owe students a “general duty of care” under common law. This assertion is often treated as decisive, even conversation-ending. But in law, the existence of a duty is rarely the point at which analysis stops. The real question is the nature of that duty — what it requires, when it arises, and whether it imposes any positive obligation to act.
A recent article by David Sykes provides a careful and timely legal analysis of these questions in the specific and difficult context of student suicide. Sykes does not write as an advocate, nor does he call for legislative reform. Instead, he examines how the legal relationship between universities and students has been understood across a range of doctrines, and what those frameworks can — and cannot — deliver when a student dies by suicide. Read closely, his analysis helps explain why reliance on a general common-law duty tells us very little about whether universities are legally required to protect students from foreseeable harm arising from vulnerability.
What Sykes sets out to examine
Sykes’ starting point is straightforward. Student suicide is no longer a marginal issue. Disclosures of mental-health conditions among students are rising; coroners are increasingly scrutinising university practices; and bereaved families are asking what legal responsibilities universities truly bear when support fails. Against that background, Sykes asks how far universities are accountable in law for student deaths, and through what legal mechanisms that accountability might arise.
Rather than assuming a single answer, he undertakes a broad survey of the legal models that have been used to characterise the university–student relationship. These include public and constitutional law approaches, contract, tort, consumer law, in loco parentis, fiduciary obligations, trust-based analogies, equality law, and the doctrine of legitimate expectation. The breadth of this survey is telling. It reflects an implicit recognition that no single model has yet provided a clear or satisfactory account of university responsibility in cases involving student suicide.
The recurring claim of a “general duty of care”
Throughout his analysis, Sykes engages with the position frequently advanced by Government: that universities already owe students a duty of care under common law, and that creating a statutory duty would therefore be unnecessary or disproportionate. He does not dispute that universities can owe duties of care, nor does he suggest that they are legally unaccountable.
What he does instead is examine what that duty actually amounts to in practice.
This is where an important distinction emerges, even though it is not always named explicitly. In common law, everyone owes a basic duty not to cause foreseeable harm through their own actions. This is the most general and least demanding form of duty of care. Universities plainly fall within it — but so does everyone else.
The difficulty is that student suicide cases are rarely about universities causing harm in this ordinary sense. They are about what was not done: warnings not acted upon, information not shared, adjustments not made, systems that failed to engage, and opportunities for intervention that were missed. In legal terms, these are omissions rather than acts. And common law has always been cautious about imposing positive duties to act.
Testing the available legal frameworks
Read as a whole, Sykes’ survey of legal models can be understood as a sustained attempt to answer a single underlying question: does any existing legal framework impose a clear, enforceable obligation on universities to take positive steps to protect students from foreseeable harm arising from vulnerability?
Again and again, the answer is uncertain.
Contract law establishes mutual rights and obligations, but it is transactional and service-focused. Student contracts are non-negotiated, drafted by universities, and poorly suited to addressing safeguarding failures or mental-health crises.
Consumer law improves transparency and fairness of terms, but it does not require universities to organise themselves to prevent harm.
Tort law remains the principal route for claims following a death, yet negligence is retrospective, fact-specific, and heavily dependent on foreseeability, causation, and proof of breach. In suicide cases, these hurdles are particularly difficult to overcome, especially where mental illness is involved.
The doctrine of in loco parentis has long been abandoned in higher education and offers no realistic framework for adult students.
Fiduciary duty is examined carefully and ultimately rejected. Universities cannot owe students the exclusive loyalty required of fiduciaries, given their obligation to balance the interests of many stakeholders. Importantly, this rejection does not strengthen the existing position; it removes one of the few doctrines that might have imposed strong positive obligations.
Trust-based and facilitator models are largely metaphorical or aspirational, rather than legally enforceable.
The doctrine of legitimate expectation offers a possible route where universities have made specific promises about support or safeguarding, but Sykes shows how underdeveloped and fragile this doctrine remains, particularly when public bodies invoke the “public interest”.
Across these models, a consistent pattern emerges. The law recognises relationships, responsibilities, and failures, but stops short of imposing a clear, forward-looking duty to protect.
Equality law: a revealing contrast
The sharpest contrast in Sykes’ analysis comes from equality law. Under the Equality Act 2010, universities owe anticipatory and proactive duties to disabled students, including those with mental-health conditions. They must make reasonable adjustments to prevent substantial disadvantage. They cannot simply wait to be asked.
The litigation brought following the death of Natasha Abrahart illustrates the significance of this. The failure to adjust assessment methods was not treated as an unfortunate oversight or a difficult judgement call. It was unlawful discrimination. The law did not ask whether harm had been caused, but whether the institution had taken steps to avoid harm arising from the student’s known vulnerability.
This matters because it shows that, where Parliament intends institutions to act positively in response to identified risk, it knows how to impose clear and enforceable obligations. Equality law does not rely on a vague general duty; it specifies what must be done.
Sykes does not suggest that equality law resolves all issues — it applies only where disability is established or reasonably foreseeable — but its clarity stands in sharp contrast to the uncertainty of the common-law duty of care. In doing so, it exposes the limits of relying on the general duty alone in safeguarding contexts.
Coroners’ findings and the accountability gap
Sykes’ discussion of coronial findings further illustrates this gap. Coroners repeatedly identify safeguarding failures: missed opportunities, lack of personal engagement, poor coordination between services. Universities often acknowledge these failings and commit to improvement.
Yet legal consequences rarely follow. This is not because the failures are illusory, but because the law struggles to translate failures to protect into breaches of duty. Coroners can describe what went wrong; they cannot impose obligations that did not clearly exist at the time.
Once again, the issue is not the absence of any duty at all. It is the absence of a duty whose nature is suited to safeguarding.
What Sykes’ analysis ultimately shows
Sykes does not argue for a statutory duty of care. He does not need to. His analysis demonstrates something more fundamental: that reliance on a general duty in common law is inadequate to address student suicide and safeguarding failures in higher education.
Everyone, including universities, owes a general duty not to cause harm. That duty is real, but it is minimal. It does not require institutions to organise themselves to respond to known risk, nor does it create clear expectations about intervention where vulnerability is apparent.
Where the law does impose clear, anticipatory obligations — most notably under equality legislation — it does so by statute, not by relying on the general common-law duty alone. The question, therefore, is not whether a duty exists, but whether its nature is fit for purpose. On Sykes’ own careful analysis, reliance on an uncodified, reactive general duty is not.