Opinion ID: 2791898
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory Origins

Text: {18} New Mexico did not enact its child abuse reporting statute in a vacuum. Our statute was part of a national movement that was spurred in 1962 by publication of a seminal article, The Battered-Child Syndrome, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. See Leonard G. Brown, III & Kevin Gallagher, Mandatory Reporting of Abuse: A Historical Perspective on the Evolution of States’ Current Mandatory Reporting Laws with a Review of the Laws in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 59 Vill. L. Rev. Tolle Lege 37, 37 & n.4 (2013). Prior to the article’s publication, no state had enacted a child abuse reporting law, but within just the next four years, all fifty states had done so. Id. at 37. {19} Following publication of The Battered-Child Syndrome, which “worked to galvanize the American public to take action,” Brown & Gallagher, supra, at 39, a number of medical and legal professionals published articles about the problem of child abuse and the need for protective statutes, particularly including reporting laws. See, e.g., Allan H. McCoid, The Battered Child and Other Assaults Upon the Family: Part One, 50 Minn. L. Rev. 1, 3-19 (1965). The Children’s Bureau of the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare2, the Council of State Governments, the American Humane Association, and the American Medical Association all drafted model statutes to “offer various alternatives to the state legislators [considering enactment of reporting legislation] on the issue of who should be required to report.” Monrad G. Paulsen, Child Abuse Reporting Laws: The Shape of the Legislation, 67 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 2 & n.4, 3 (1967). Throughout the United States, “child 2 The United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare became the United States Department of Health and Human Services in 1979. As of 1979, the Children’s Bureau is an office within a division of the department. See, e.g., organizational information available at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/about/offices. 6 abuse reporting laws were passed quickly, perhaps even hastily.” Brown & Gallagher, supra, at 39. {20} The 1963 Children’s Bureau proposal, initially followed by twenty-two states, would have imposed a reporting duty only on physicians, on the theory that physicians would be in the best position to learn of child abuse. Paulsen, supra, at 2 n.4, 3-4, 6; see John B. Reinhart & Elizabeth Elmer, The Abused Child[:] Mandatory Reporting Legislation, 188 J. Am. Med. Ass’n, Apr. 27, 1964, at 358 (discussing advantages and disadvantages of the 1963 Children’s Bureau proposal for the model legislation). An advisory committee of the American Humane Association proposed in 1963 to broaden the class of reporters to include all medical practitioners and hospital personnel. Paulsen, supra, at 2 n.6, 4. In 1965, the Council of State Governments added registered nurses to its list of required reporters. Id. at 2 n.5, 5. {21} The “American Medical Association (AMA) objected to physicians’ being singled out for a special reporting duty” and proposed adding schoolteachers and social workers to those under a duty to report, extending the reporting requirement in its 1965 proposed legislation to “‘any doctor of medicine, resident or intern[,] . . . any registered nurse, any visiting nurse, any school teacher or any social worker acting in his or her official capacity.’” Paulsen, supra, at 3 n.7, 5 (omission in original) (quoting the 1965 AMA proposed legislation); see Office of the General Counsel, AMA, Editorial, Battered Child Legislation, 188 J. Am. Med. Ass’n, Apr. 27, 1964, at 386 (recommending that mandatory reporting of child abuse extend beyond physicians to other professions, including social workers). {22} In 1965, the New Mexico Legislature enacted the first predecessor to our current law, a permissive statute providing that “[a]ny licensed practitioner of the healing arts, resident, or intern, examining, attending, or treating a child under the age of 16 years, any registered nurse, any visiting nurse, any school teacher or social worker acting in his or her official capacity, or any ordained minister of an established church” was permitted, but not required, to report suspected child abuse without risk of a lawsuit. 1965 N.M. Laws, ch. 157, § 2. The “official capacity” language has been a feature of the reporting statute in every version from 1965 to the present, and to understand its significance it is important to understand its history.