Opinion ID: 2554388
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Duty Voluntarily Assumed

Text: Nor is this one of the narrow class of cases in which a special relationship can arise from a duty voluntarily undertaken by a municipality to an injured person. We listed the elements of such a special relationship in Cuffy v City of New York (69 NY2d 255, 260 [1987]): (1) an assumption by the municipality, through promises or actions, of an affirmative duty to act on behalf of the party who was injured; (2) knowledge on the part of the municipality's agents that inaction could lead to harm; (3) some form of direct contact between the municipality's agents and the injured party; and (4) that party's justifiable reliance on the municipality's affirmative undertaking. These elements simply are not present here. Ms. McLean points to no promises or actions by which the City assumed a duty to do something on her or her daughter's behalf. The City's duty to Ms. McLean and Briana was neither more nor less than its duty to any other parent and child in need of day care. Indeed, the only direct contact between the City and Ms. McLean was a routine telephone conversation in which an ACS employee agreed to send a list of registered providers and answered questions about what registration meant. Though we assume that the employee was negligent in answering the questions and that her negligence caused injury, the City is not liable. The relationship between the City and Ms. McLean was not special, as our cases use that term.