Opinion ID: 1372176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: If required, a special relationship was sufficiently alleged.

Text: First of all, and assuming that such a special relationship must be alleged and proved by the plaintiff in this case (an assumption with which I disagree, for reasons to be stated), I believe that such a special relationship was sufficiently alleged in this case. I do not read Restatement of Torts (Second) § 315, as quoted by Peterson, J., to require a custodial relationship between the jailer and the person who killed plaintiff's decedent of such a nature as to satisfy Restatement § 319. That section, as quoted by Justice Peterson, does not purport to state the only kind of special relationship intended by § 315. Instead, § 315 speaks of a special relationship and the requirements of that section can be satisfied either by some special relationship between the defendant and the third person or between the defendant and the injured person. Surely defendants and Justice Peterson would not contend that if John Dillinger, the famous gangster, came at night to a jail where his girl friend was being held, a jailer would have no duty to exercise reasonable care to see that he did not then try to help her to escape from jail because there was no custodial relationship between the jailer and Dillinger. In my view, once a jailer allows a visitor to enter a jail, a special relationship arises within the meaning of § 315 between the jailer and the visitor of such a nature as to impose upon the jailer a duty to control the visitor's conduct so as, for example, to prevent the visitor from smuggling weapons to an inmate in the jail or, as in this case, to assist an inmate to escape from the jail. In addition, I believe, as held by the Court of Appeals, that a jailer, by undertaking the custody of a prisoner, undertakes a duty to prevent his escape and that, as a result, a special relationship arises within the meaning of § 315 between the jailer and a police officer who may be called upon to prevent such an escape or to apprehend the escaping prisoner.