Opinion ID: 6109814
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: 303C Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Negligence

Text: The trial court determined that [Mother]'s conduct ... is the primary and root cause of the damages in this case, but that Grandparents owed the boys ordinary-care and fiduciary duties to protect them from their mother, which they failed to fulfill. We need not consider whether Grandparents owed the children a duty because we conclude Mother's conduct was so outrageous and unprecedented that Grandparents could not have reasonably anticipated Mother would behave as she did. Because Mother's conduct was unforeseeable, the boys' fiduciary duty and negligence claims fail as a matter of law. 27 Claims based on ordinary negligence and fiduciary duty both require showing damages were proximately caused by breach of a duty. 28 Proximate cause has two components: foreseeability and cause in fact. 29 Harm is foreseeable if a person of ordinary intelligence should have anticipated the danger created by an act or omission. 30 Foreseeability usually is determined by whether the defendant is aware of prior, similar conduct by third parties. 31 The exact sequence of events need not be foreseeable; rather, the prior conduct must be sufficiently similar to give the defendant notice of the general nature of the danger. 32 We consider not only the foreseeability of the general danger but also whether the injury to the particular plaintiff or one similarly situated could be anticipated. 33 Foreseeability requires more than someone, viewing the facts in retrospect, theorizing an extraordinary sequence of events whereby the defendant's conduct brings about the injury. 34 On the record in this case, Mother's actions were not foreseeable as a matter of law. Over the course of more than a year, Mother coached Mike to make numerous false sexual-abuse allegations against his father (and later one or both of his half-sisters). Dr. Ferrell, a neutral court-appointed clinical and forensic psychologist, testified that a child as young as Mike could not absorb a lie and believably repeat it without repetitive coaching. Mike said Mother hurt him, stepping on his toes while forcing him to memorize his lines. The false outcries resulted in multiple physically intrusive and mentally traumatizing sexual-assault examinations for Mike and at least one for Charlie. This was not an unintended consequence-Mother specifically orchestrated two sexual-assault examinations for Mike in one day (with a visit to Father in between) in an effort to frame Father.  Nothing in Mother's past suggested she would act so heinously, particularly towards her children. Father makes much of Dr. Ferrell diagnosing Mother with anxiety, depression, indicators of bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic and histrionic behavior. Even so, it is undisputed that Mother had never been diagnosed with any mental illness before then. Foreseeability is based on what is known at the time, not hindsight. 35 Mother received brief in-patient treatment in high school when her school performance declined, and as an adult, she had periodic emotional outbursts and had threatened suicide. But there is no evidence the extent of her psychological issues was then-known or that this worrisome behavior portended that she would harm her children. Before she married Father, Mother made false allegations against a former boyfriend, resulting in a lawsuit that her parents helped her pay to settle. But no evidence indicates the false allegations were in any way similar to those here or that Grandparents knew any case details, including that false allegations were at issue. Nothing in the record afforded Grandparents notice that Mother would hatch an elaborate scheme of false sexual-abuse allegations against Father or that she would involve others in implementing her plan, much less her own children. Even if the general nature of Mother's plot was foreseeable, the harm to her children was not. 36 A year earlier, the divorce court, with Father's agreement, awarded Mother primary custody of the boys, providing Grandparents with objective indications that Mother was a fit parent. Grandparents were also aware of Mother's parenting of her other child, Alice, whom she had as a teenager. Grandparents raised Alice, who continued to live with them when Mother moved out at age twenty-five. At one point, Grandparents sought custody of Alice but did not pursue it after Mother refused to consent. The record shows only that Grandparents sought legal custody to facilitate processes such as signing medical and school paperwork rather than any misconduct by Mother. No evidence regarding her parenting of Alice suggests Mother would engage in the physically and emotionally harmful conduct she did here. Though prior conduct need not be identical to render a specific act foreseeable, it must be sufficiently similar to allow a reasonable person to anticipate and therefore protect against it. 37 So, for example, a scoutmaster's molestation of a boy was foreseeable based on allegations he had behaved inappropriately with other boys, 38 but a husband's sexual assault of his young daughter's friend was unforeseeable to his wife because he had never engaged in any such conduct before. 39 Prior domestic disturbances,  vandalism, and theft did not make a violent crime foreseeable, 40 but a string of assaults and robberies in an apartment complex make the risk of other violent crimes, like murder and rape, foreseeable. 41 The key is whether the behavior at issue is so similar in character and severity to what came before as to be foreseeable, 42 or instead is so extraordinarily unlike prior conduct that it could not reasonably have been anticipated. 43 We conclude Mother's past behavior, though unquestionably troubling, was so materially different in character and severity that Grandparents could not reasonably anticipate she would use and harm her children in the extraordinary manner she did here. Because Mother's conduct was unforeseeable, no evidence supports a finding of proximate cause in this case.