Case Title: Lafond v. VT Dept. of Social and Rehabilitation Services

Citation: 167 Vt. 407, 708 A.2d 919

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1998-01-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
Lafond v. Dept. of Soc. & Rehabilitation Servs.  (96-591); 167 Vt. 407; 
708 A.2d 919

[Filed 23-Jan-1998]

       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.

                            No. 96-591

Gary and Tracy Lafond                        Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
    v.                                       Chittenden Superior Court

Vermont Department of Social &               September Term, 1997
Rehabilitation Services, State of
Vermont and Coleman Baker

Shireen Avis Fisher, J.

       Jerome F. O'Neill and Laura K. Collins of O'Neill Crawford & Green,
  Burlington, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

       Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Attorney General, Montpelier, and Michael O. Duane
  and Barbara L. Crippen, Assistant Attorneys General, Waterbury, for
  Defendant-Appellant.

PRESENT:  Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ., and Allen, C.J. (Ret.) and
          Gibson, J. (Ret.), Specially Assigned

       MORSE, J.   On May 7, 1992, plaintiffs' infant son died when he became
  entangled in a curtain cord while in his crib at Kiddie Kare Day Care, a
  licensed day-care center.  In a lawsuit against defendant Vermont
  Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, plaintiffs alleged that
  their son's death was caused in part by the Department's negligent
  inspection and supervision of the day care facility.  The trial court
  denied the Department's motion for summary judgment based upon a claim of
  sovereign immunity, and we allowed an interlocutory appeal.  V.R.A.P. 5(b). 
  We now hold that the trial court erred in denying the Department's motion
  for summary judgment, and therefore reverse.

                                     I.

       Kiddie Kare had been licensed by the Department as a day-care facility
  since 1981.  In 1989, plaintiffs enrolled their two daughters there, and
  the following year enrolled their son

 

  Tyler, who attended until his death in May 1992.  Prior to enrolling their
  daughters, plaintiffs, who were eligible for a child-care subsidy, inquired
  of a Department employee whether Kiddie Kare was a covered facility and
  whether it was a good day-care center.  The employee responded that she had
  nothing bad on file about Kiddie Kare and that the Department would provide
  the subsidy.  Plaintiffs also visited the center before enrolling their
  daughters.

       On May 4, 1992, a Department employee inspected Kiddie Kare as part of
  an annual relicensing requirement.  Three days later, on May 7, 1992,
  plaintiffs' son Tyler became entangled in a curtain cord while in his crib
  at the Kiddie Kare center.  Strangulation from the cord caused suffocation
  and death.  The inspector had not observed a curtain cord hanging down from
  the window next to the crib in which Tyler died.  Department regulations
  did not prohibit or restrict curtain cords at the time of Tyler's death,
  although information about the risk of strangulation by such cords had been
  been publicly available from the United States Consumer Product Safety
  Commission since 1985, and the inspector acknowledged that she would have
  inquired about its proximity to the crib if she had seen it.

       Following Tyler's death, plaintiffs filed suit alleging three causes
  of action: (1) that defendants State of Vermont and the Department had
  negligently promulgated day care safety regulations and had negligently
  inspected the Kiddie Kare facility, and (2) had negligently recommended the
  Kiddie Kare center; and (3) that defendant Coleman Baker, a departmental
  officer, had been grossly negligent in overseeing the inspection of Kiddie
  Kare.

       The Department moved for summary judgment based on sovereign immunity
  and qualified official immunity.  The trial court ultimately granted the
  motion as to the second and third counts as well as the
  negligent-promulgation claim of the first count.  The court denied the
  motion, however, as to the negligent-inspection claim of the first count,
  ruling that the Department owed a duty of care to plaintiffs under the
  State's day-care licensing and regulatory scheme, and that there was a
  private analog between the State's duty and the duty owed by a private
  insurance company to perform an adequate safety inspection of its insured's
  premises

 

  under this Court's decision in Derosia v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 155 Vt.
  178, 187, 583 A.2d 881, 885 (1990).  This appeal by the Department
  followed.

                                     II.

       The death of a child under the grievous circumstances presented here
  evokes profound sympathy for the child's family, especially his parents,
  whose pain and anguish can scarcely be imagined.  Our duty, however, is to
  determine whether, as a matter of law, the doctrine of sovereign immunity
  bars plaintiffs' tort suit for damages against the Department.  Analyzed
  dispassionately, the law dictates that sovereign immunity applies.  The
  licensing and inspection of day care facilities are inherently governmental
  functions which find no private analog or duty of care in our common law. 
  Accordingly, under the Vermont Tort Claims Act, 12 V.S.A. §§ 5601-5606, and
  the relevant case law plaintiffs' action is barred.

       Sovereign immunity protects the state from suit unless immunity is
  expressly waived by statute.  LaShay v. Department of Social and
  Rehabilitation Servs., 160 Vt. 60, 67,