Opinion ID: 1301715
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Special Duty of Care

Text: Mr. Adkins' last argument is that the trial court erred in finding that the county animal control ordinance did not create a special duty of care towards individual members of the general public. Prior to the adoption of the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, the Court of Appeals developed a six element test to determine when an ordinance created a special duty. Rayfield v. South Carolina Dept. of Corrections, 297 S.C. 95, 374 S.E.2d 910 (Ct.App.1988) cert. denied, 298 S.C. 204, 379 S.E.2d 133 (1989). We affirmatively adopted the Rayfield test in Bellamy v. Brown, 305 S.C. 291, 408 S.E .2d 219 (1991), where we stated that a special duty exists when: (1) an essential purpose of the statute is to protect against a particular kind of harm; (2) the statute, either directly or indirectly, imposes on a specific public officer a duty to guard against or not cause that harm; (3) the class of persons the statute intends to protect is identifiable before the fact; (4) the plaintiff is a person within the protected class; (5) the public officer knows or has reason to know the likelihood of harm to members of the class if he fails to do his duty; and (6) the officer is given sufficient authority to act in the circumstances or he undertakes to act in the exercise of his office. Id. at 294, 408 S.E.2d at 221. Moreover, in Jensen v. Anderson County DSS, 304 S.C. 195, 403 S.E.2d 615 (1991), we held that where there is a duty to the general public only, an officer is not liable to an individual who is incidentally injured by the officer's failure to perform that duty. In Jensen, we also recognized that the Rayfield analysis may have a different implication in cases arising after the adoption of the South Carolina Tort Claims Act. Id. at 201 n. 2, 403 S.E.2d at 618 n. 2. However, assuming arguendo that the ordinance did create a special duty, it would still not rise to a level which would abrogate the plain meaning of § 15-78-60(4). Therefore, the ordinance would have to create a special duty which reaches beyond the general public. The terms used in the Animal Control Ordinance are general, and they allow for a discretionary delegation of the duty to a non-government contractor. There is no identification of a particular class of potential victims, and the terms do not identify a particular kind of harm. It would be difficult to read a special duty into the language of the Animal Control Ordinance, and there does not appear to be a legislative intent to create such a duty. Accordingly, for the reasons stated, the trial court's granting of a summary judgment is AFFIRMED. HARWELL, C.J., and CHANDLER, FINNEY and MOORE, JJ., concur.