Opinion ID: 6357225
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying the Factors to Maxim

Text: While some aspects of the above analysis recommend subjecting Maxim to a similar duty, we find that it would not reflect a fair balance of competing interests to do so in this case. As we have emphasized, the principal source of the duty we impose on UPMC is the public policy clearly embodied in federal law. The federal government's silence as to staffing agencies like Maxim speaks just as clearly. Implicit in our many comments over the decades regarding the slippery nature of defining a duty, and the risk of broadening liability to the breaking point, is the fact that lines must be drawn-and unfortunately must be drawn in ways that defy easy rationalization and sometimes leave victims without a remedy. We find that UPMC's reporting obligation, and Maxim's lack of such an obligation, require us to draw the line between those parties under the facts of this case. The generalized duty to inform law enforcement that the Superior Court imposed upon Maxim, unbounded by the terms or requirements of a federal regulation and subject to innumerable potential controversies regarding how to report, to whom to report, and how aggressively to act to ensure an adequate response by law enforcement, simply is too amorphous, the potential consequences of doing so too difficult to anticipate. Thus, imposing such a generalized duty upon Maxim to report to law enforcement agencies lacks the clarity sufficient to determine that the balance of factors predominat[es] in favor of imposing the duty, Seebold , 57 A.3d at 1245 , or to conclude with reasonable certainty that the change will serve the best interests of society. Lance , 85 A.3d at 454 . The duty that the Superior Court imposed upon Maxim manifestly presents the risk that a superficially appealing duty could expand in future cases into something that confounds sound public policy and defies principled limitation. 26 Moreover, to impose  such a duty deriving solely from reticence about the consequences of not doing so when nothing in the statutory, regulatory, or common law supports imposing such a duty upon a party in Maxim's situation confounds our time-honored reluctance to hold a party liable for another party's criminal conduct absent a special relationship. See Feld , 485 A.2d at 746 . Accordingly, we find that the Superior Court erred to the extent that it imposed such a duty on Maxim.