Opinion ID: 2595449
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: DFYS's duty of care to the Greens

Text: In summarily rejecting the Greens' claim that DFYS failed to exercise the care necessary to prevent Billy from harming them, the superior court assumed that the State owed a duty of reasonable care to the [Greens]. But it found that despite this duty, summary judgment was warranted because there are no issues of material fact and reasonable people could not disagree that the actions of [Billy] complained of were not foreseeable. The state concedes it owes a duty of due care to protect prospective foster parents from harm by foster children and that the duty takes form in a requirement of reasonable disclosure: The State agrees that it must provide prospective foster parents with reasonable information about a child prior to placement and must take reasonable steps to gather such information. We too agree that the state owes a duty of reasonable care to protect prospective foster parents. As we recently emphasized, [t]he existence of a duty turns not on the particularized facts of a given case, but rather on the basic nature of the relationship between the parties to the cause of action. [6] In D.S.W. v. Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, we laid out the factors that courts must consider in determining whether a duty of care exists. [7] Applying the D.S.W. factors in Division of Corrections v. Neakok , we determined that the special relationship between the Alaska Department of Corrections and parolees under its supervision gave rise to an actionable duty to warn or otherwise protect their potential victims. [8] We similarly concluded in R.E. v. State that the state owed parents whose children used DFYS-licensed daycare facilities a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harm to their children from sexual abuse. [9] D.S.W., Neakok, and R.E. compel us to find the existence of a duty in the present case. [10] Here, as in Neakok and R.E., DFYS stands in a special relationship both with children in need of aid who come under its supervision and with prospective foster parents whom it seeks to enlist as their custodians. Because placing a foster child poses foreseeable risks to new foster parents, [11] this special relationship requires DFYS to exercise due care to minimize potential harm by making reasonable efforts to gather and disclose facts necessary to give foster parents an informed basis for deciding whether to accept a particular child and what supervision the child may need. We emphasize that this duty to investigate and disclose only requires DFYS to take steps that a reasonable person in its position would find prudent under the totality of the circumstances. Determining whether this duty has been breached will require a careful, case-specific balancing of factors such as the recency, reliability, and accessibility of any undisclosed information, the nature and degree of risk stemming from nondisclosure, the child's legitimate interests in privacy, the state's compelling interest in ensuring prompt and appropriate placement for children needing aid, the limited resources of an agency like DFYS, the agency's compliance with its own internal policies, and the existence of any unusual exigencies. [12] While the precise scope of this duty is a question of fact for the jury, [13] its general contours here are clearly defined by DFYS standards governing disclosure. DFYS's Child Protective Services Manual provides: To assist the foster family in making an informed decision regarding whether to accept a particular child, to help the foster family anticipate problems which may occur during the child's placement, and to help the foster family meet the needs of the child in a constructive manner, [the agency shall] provide the following information to the foster family: 1. the strengths, needs, and general behavior of the child; 2. circumstances which necessitated placement of the child; 3. information about the child's family and his relationship to his family; 4. [i]mportant life experiences and relationships which may affect the child's feelings, behavior, attitudes, or adjustment; 5. [m]edical history, to include third party coverage which may be available to the child; 6. education history, to include present grade placement, special strengths, weaknesses.[ [14] ] Under these standards, the information at issue in the present caseschool performance and disciplinary records, relevant information from recent psychological evaluations, and past family and placement historyfalls squarely within the range of disclosable information. [15]