Opinion ID: 2326632
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Negligence: Duty

Text: As noted, the actions against Shirey and Walsh personally, based on allegations of gross negligence, are not pursued in this appeal. Because the St. Mary's County DSS is a State agency and Shirey and Walsh are State personnel ( see Walker v. Human Resources, 379 Md. 407, 842 A.2d 53 (2004)), any action for simple negligence is properly brought against the State under the State Tort Claims Act (Maryland Code, title 12, subtitle 1 of the State Government Article). The elements of a cause of action in negligence are well-established. To state a claim, the plaintiff must allege facts demonstrating (1) that the defendant was under a duty to protect the plaintiff from injury, (2) that the defendant breached that duty, (3) that the plaintiff suffered actual injury or loss, and (4) that the loss or injury proximately resulted from the defendant's breach of the duty. Remsburg v. Montgomery, 376 Md. 568, 582, 831 A.2d 18, 26 (2003), quoting from Muthukumarana v. Montgomery Co., supra, 370 Md. at 486, 805 A.2d at 395. As noted in Remsburg, 376 Md. at 582, 831 A.2d at 26, we have adopted Prosser and Keeton's characterization of duty as an obligation, to which the law will give recognition and effect, to conform to a particular standard of conduct toward another, and, in determining whether a duty exists, have considered such things as, the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered the injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved. Id. at 583, 831 A.2d at 26, quoting from Ashburn v. Anne Arundel Co., 306 Md. 617, 627, 510 A.2d 1078, 1083 (1986), quoting, in turn, from Tarasoff v. Regents of Univ. of California, 17 Cal.3d 425, 131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334, 342 (1976). In Jacques v. First Nat'l Bank, 307 Md. 527, 534, 515 A.2d 756, 759 (1986), we consolidated some of that into two considerations: the nature of the harm likely to result from a failure to exercise due care, and the relationship that exists between the parties. See also Bobo v. State, 346 Md. 706, 714-15, 697 A.2d 1371, 1375-76 (1997). As a general proposition, a private person is under no special duty to protect another from criminal acts by a third person, in the absence of statutes, or of a special relationship. Scott v. Watson, 278 Md. 160, 166, 359 A.2d 548, 552 (1976); Valentine v. On Target, 353 Md. 544, 551-52, 727 A.2d 947, 950 (1999). Horridge has pled both  a duty imposed by statute (Count I) and a duty imposed by virtue of a special relationship (Count II), but we need deal only with the statutory context pled in Count I. The relevant statutes are those contained in title 5, subtitle 7 of the Family Law Article (FL), §§ 5-701 through 5-714. In the law itself, the Legislature declared that the purpose of that subtitle, captioned Child Abuse and Neglect, was to protect children who have been the subject of abuse or neglect by: (1) mandating the reporting of any suspected abuse or neglect; (2) giving immunity to any individual who reports, in good faith, a suspected incident of abuse or neglect; (3) requiring prompt investigation of each reported suspected incident of abuse or neglect; (4) causing immediate, cooperative efforts by the responsible agencies on behalf of children who have been the subject of reports of abuse or neglect; and (5) requiring each local department [of social services] to give the appropriate service in the best interest of the abused or neglected child.  (Emphasis added). FL § 5-702. To achieve that purpose, FL §§ 5-704 and 5-705 require anyone who has reason to believe that a child has been subjected to abuse or neglect to notify either DSS or the appropriate law enforcement agency. The report may be oral or in writing and, insofar as reasonably possible, it must include the name, age, and home address of the child, the name and home address of the child's parent or other person responsible for the child, the whereabouts of the child, the nature and extent of the abuse or neglect, and any other information that would help determine the cause of the abuse or neglect and the identity of the person responsible for it. See FL §§ 5-704(c) and 5-705(d). The report, in other words, must be specific, so that the recipient can identify and locate the child and have some basis for launching an investigation. To encourage persons to make these reports, § 5-708 provides immunity from both civil liability and criminal penalty for any person who makes or participates in making such a report. As noted, § 5-706 requires DSS to respond to a report of abuse. Section 5-706(a) provides, in relevant part, that [p]romptly after receiving a report of suspected abuse or neglect ... the local department or the appropriate law enforcement agency, or both, if jointly agreed on, shall make a thorough investigation of a report of suspected abuse to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the child or children.  [1] (Emphasis added). Section 5-706(b) requires DSS, [w]ithin 24 hours after receiving a report of suspected physical or sexual abuse, to (1) see the child; (2) attempt to have an on-site interview with the child's caretaker; (3) decide on the safety of the child, wherever the child is, and of other children in the household; and (4) decide on the safety of other children in the care or custody of the alleged abuser. The investigation must include a determination of the nature, extent, and cause of the abuse and, if abuse is verified, a determination of the identity of the persons responsible for it, a determination of the name, age, and condition of any other child in the household, an evaluation of the parents and the home environment, and a determination of any other pertinent facts and any needed services. FL § 5-706(c). To the extent possible, the investigation must be completed within ten days after receipt of the first notice of the suspected abuse. Within that 10-day period, DSS must make a preliminary report of its findings to the local State's Attorney, and, within five business days after completion of the investigation, it must make a complete written report of its findings to the State's Attorney. See FL § 5-706(g), (h), and (i). Based on its findings and any treatment plan, DSS is required to render the appropriate services in the best interests of the child, including, when indicated, petitioning the juvenile court on behalf of the child for appropriate relief, including the added protection to the child that either commitment or custody would provide. (Emphasis added). FL § 5-710. These statutory requirements are supplemented by regulations adopted by the Department of Human Resources. COMAR 07.02.07.05 requires DSS to establish a process for ensuring that a report of suspected child abuse from any source is immediately directed to its child protective service unit. It requires DSS to have staff on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to receive and take appropriate action on reports of suspected child abuse and to ensure that the public has a means of access to staff who are on-call after normal office hours. Upon receipt of a report of suspected child abuse, DSS must [i]mmediately notify the local law enforcement agency. Only if the reported incident does not meet the definition of child abuse or neglect defined in Regulation .02B of this chapter may DSS decline to initiate an investigation. COMAR 07.02.07.05E. [2] As noted, the statute requires a report to contain certain specific information, and that is provided for as well in the regulations (COMAR 07.02.07.04D). If the report is deficient in that regard, COMAR 07.02.07.06 requires DSS to attempt to obtain the missing information from the reporting source. Thus, to the extent that any of the eight reports of abuse made by Horridge failed to contain relevant information, DSS was obliged to make inquiry of him to obtain that information. The regulations concerning the investigation and any ensuing action are quite detailed and need not all be repeated. At least two more are particularly relevant, however. COMAR 07.02.07.07A requires DSS, during an investigation, to gather appropriate information to assess immediate safety and risk of maltreatment of children in the household, determine whether child abuse is indicated, unsubstantiated, or ruled out, determine whether maltreatment, other than that initially reported, is indicated, unsubstantiated, or ruled out, determine what services, if any, are appropriate, and determine if DSS should initiate shelter care or file a Child in Need of Assistance petition. COMAR 07.02.07.08, in conformance with FL § 5-706(b), requires DSS (or, by joint agreement between DSS and a law enforcement agency, a law enforcement officer) to initiate an on-site investigation, see the alleged victim and determine if the health, safety, and well-being of the alleged victim require that the child be removed, and take certain other designated action. The defense that is usually raised by social service agencies in cases such as this, and the defense raised by DSS in this case, is what has become known as the public duty doctrine, i.e., when a statute or common law `imposes upon a public entity a duty to the public at large, and not a duty to a particular class of individuals, the duty is not one enforceable in tort. Muthukumarana v. Montgomery County, supra, 370 Md. at 486, 805 A.2d at 395, quoting from DAN B. DOBBS, THE LAW OF TORTS § 271 (2000). See also Williams v. Baltimore, 359 Md. 101, 753 A.2d 41 (2000). Relying on Muthukumarana, Willow Tree v. Prince George's County, 85 Md.App. 508, 584 A.2d 157 (1991), and Lamb v. Hopkins, 303 Md. 236, 492 A.2d 1297 (1985), DSS urges that, [a]bsent an express intent by the Legislature to create such a duty, there was no duty owed to Collin individually. Any contrary ruling, it fears, would make DSS a guarantor of a particular child's safety. As have other courts around the country, we reject that argument. The cases cited are not on point; the Legislature, in our view, has created a duty flowing to children specifically identified to DSS as being the subject of suspected abuse, and recognition of that duty would not make DSS a guarantor of the safety of those children or any other. We recognized in Muthukumarana that the public duty doctrine has no application when the court concludes that a statute or court order has created a special duty or specific obligation to a particular class of persons rather than to the public at large. 370 Md. at 487, 805 A.2d at 396, quoting from DAN D. DOBBS, supra, § 271. That case dealt with whether 911 operators and supervisors were liable in tort for negligence in failing to respond properly to emergency calls. We concluded that their duty was to the public at large, not to anyone in particular, and that, unless it could be shown that the 911 employee affirmatively acted to protect or assist the specific individual, or a specific group of individuals like the individual in need of assistance, thereby inducing a specific reliance, no tort duty existed. Id. at 496, 805 A.2d at 401. In large part, that conclusion was based on the often imprecise or unclear information given to the 911 operators, upon which they must act instantaneously. Id. at 491, 805 A.2d at 398. That is less of a problem with respect to reports of child abuse. For one thing, if the report is unclear or incomplete, as it often may be, DSS has a regulatory duty to clarify the information. More important, it is usually dealing with reports of abuse that have already occurred, and it has 24 hours to deal with the report; the report of an on-going incident of abuse, that needs a more immediate response, is more likely to go to 911 or a police agency. Willow Tree v. Prince George's County, supra, 85 Md.App. 508, 584 A.2d 157, dealt with whether a county that had established general safety regulations for day care centers could be held liable to the parents of a child who was killed while using playground equipment that was allegedly unsafe and in violation of the safety regulations. The Court of Special Appeals concluded that there was no special duty on the part of the State to the child, merely from the adoption of safety regulations. That is a far cry from what we have here, which is true as well with Lamb v. Hopkins, supra, 303 Md. 236, 492 A.2d 1297. The question there was whether probation officers who failed to seek the revocation of probation of an individual though aware that the individual had committed a number of drunk driving offenses during the probationary period, was liable in tort to the parents of a child severely injured by the probationer while driving intoxicated. The theory of asserted liability was that the defendants, having taken charge of the probationer, had a special duty under the principles enunciated in §§ 314-319 of the Restatement (Second) or Torts (1965) to prevent that person from harming others and that it had a statutory duty to report violations to the court. The statutory duty, we held, was to the court, not to anyone else. [3] The duties imposed on DSS by FL § 5-706 and the implementing regulations of the Department of Human Resources are far more specific and focused. They require a prompt investigation of each reported incident of child abuse. The duty to act is mandatory; the steps to be taken are clearly delineated; and, most important, the statute makes clear in several places that the sole and specific objective of the requirement is the protection of a specific class of children  those identified in or identifiable from specific reports made to DSS and those also found in the home or in the care or custody of the alleged abuser. This is not an obligation that runs to everyone in general and no one in particular. It runs to an identified or identifiable child or discrete group of children. Most every other court that has considered this issue in the context of similarly worded statutes or regulations has arrived at that conclusion. In Brodie v. Summit Cty. Children Servs. Bd., 51 Ohio St.3d 112, 554 N.E.2d 1301 (1990), the Ohio equivalent of DSS, sued for failure to investigate reports of child abuse inflicted on an identified victim, raised the defense that the statutory obligation, similar to that embodied in FL § 5-706, ran to the public generally and did not create any duty to protect the specific child. The court rejected that defense: We conclude that in view of the General Assembly's express intent that children services agencies take responsibility for investigating and proceeding with appropriate action to prevent further child abuse or neglect in specific, individual cases, the public duty doctrine does not apply as a defense against an allegation that a particular child did not receive the benefit of their action as a result of the agency's negligence. We hold that a children services board and its agents have a duty to investigate and report their findings as required by [the Ohio equivalent to FL § 5-706] when a specific child is identified as abused or neglected, and the public duty doctrine may not be raised as a defense for agency failure to comply with such statutory requirements. Id. at 1308. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals reached the same result, for the same reason, in Turner v. District of Columbia, supra, 532 A.2d 662 (D.C.1987). As in this case, the DSS equivalent was sued for failure to respond to a report of child abuse. Rejecting the public duty defense, the court observed: The Child Abuse Prevention Act imposes upon certain public officials specific duties and responsibilities which are intended to protect a narrowly defined and otherwise helpless class of persons: abused and neglected children. When CPS [DSS] employees are negligent in carrying out these responsibilities, that statutorily protected class suffers in a way uniquely different from the public at large. Id. at 668. Noting that the question was whether, in that circumstance, a special relationship or special duty was created, the court relied on Mammo v. State, 138 Ariz. 528, 675 P.2d 1347 (App.1983) and Florida First National Bank v. City of Jacksonville, 310 So.2d 19 (Fla.App.1975) as consistent with others throughout the country, holding that if a state agency is required by statute or regulation to take a particular action for the benefit of a particular class and fails to do so, or negligently does so, and the plaintiffs justifiably rely to their detriment on the agency's duty to act, a cause of action in negligence will lie against the state or its agency. Turner, 532 A.2d at 672. In Jensen v. Anderson County DSS, 304 S.C. 195, 403 S.E.2d 615 (1991), the court concluded that the South Carolina equivalent of FL § 5-706 imposes a special duty on the local child protection agency and its social workers to investigate and intervene in cases where child abuse has been reported. Id. at 619. In reaching that conclusion, the court applied a six-part test to determine when a statutory special relationship exists: (1) an essential purpose of the statute is to protect against a particular kind of harm; (2) the statute, directly or indirectly, imposes on a specific public official 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/she fails to do his/her duty; and (6) the officer is given sufficient authority to act in the circumstances or undertakes to act in the exercise of his/her office. See also Coleman v. Cooper, 89 N.C.App. 188, 366 S.E.2d 2, 8 (1988); Tyner v. DSHS, Child Protective Servs., 141 Wash.2d 68, 1 P.3d 1148 (2000); M.W. v. DSHS, 149 Wash.2d 589, 70 P.3d 954, 957 (2003); Owens v. Garfield, 784 P.2d 1187, 1192 (Utah 1989); Dept. of Health & Rehab. Servs. v. Yamuni, 529 So.2d 258, 261-62 (Fla.1988); Alejo v. City of Alhambra, 75 Cal.App.4th 1180, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 768 (2000); Susan Lynn Abbott, Liability of the State and Its Employees for the Negligent Investigation of Child Abuse Reports, 10 Alaska L.Rev. 401, 405 (1993). It is not necessary to adopt precisely the six-part test enunciated by the South Carolina court in Jensen, although the elements of that test are analytically relevant and consistent with the considerations we noted in Ashburn v. Anne Arundel County, supra, 306 Md. 617, 627, 510 A.2d 1078, 1083, and Remsburg v. Montgomery, supra, 376 Md. 568, 583, 831 A.2d 18, 26. Clearly, the essential purpose of the statutory duties created by FL § 5-706 and the implementing regulations of the Department of Human Resources was to protect a specific class of children, identified or identifiable before the fact from statutorily mandated reports, from a specific kind of harm likely to occur if the statutory duty is ignored. DSS is given not just a specific duty to act in response to such a report but ample and detailed authority to do so. In a Remsburg analysis, the foreseeability of harm arising from a failure to comply with the statutory and regulatory requirements is clear. The Department of Human Resources' own statistics show that, in FY 2003, there were nearly 7,300 cases in Maryland in which there was an indicated finding of physical, mental, or sexual abuse or neglect of a child. Even more alarming, and relevant, is the most current report of the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which shows that, in CY 2002, approximately 1,400 children in the United States died of abuse or neglect, and that 76% of those fatalities involved children younger than four years of age. ( See statistical information on the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information website at www.nccanch.acf.hhs.gov). The foreseeability of harm from agency inaction, once a facially reliable report of abuse is made, may serve to establish as well the close connection between the negligent conduct and the injury ultimately suffered. The legislative policy of preventing future harm to children already reported to have been abused is so abundantly clear as to be beyond cavil, and, given the statutory mandate to act and the general waiver of tort immunity when State employees fail to act in a reasonable way and harm ensues, we can see no great burden or consequence to regarding this existing statutory duty as a civil one from which tort liability may arise. We cannot conceive that the Legislature intended, when a child is killed or injured, at least in part because DSS fails to perform the duties clearly cast upon it to make a site visit within 24 hours and a thorough investigation, for the only sanction to be the placement of a reprimand in some social worker's personnel file. The Legislature meant for DSS and its social workers to act immediately and aggressively when specific reports of abuse or neglect are made, and the best way to assure that is done is to find that they do have a special relationship with specific children identified in or, upon reasonable effort, identifiable from, facially reliable reports of abuse or neglect and, subject to the State Tort Claims Act, to make them liable if harm occurs because they fail in their mandated duty. The Circuit Court erred in finding, on the allegations of the amended complaint, that no duty, cognizable under Maryland tort law, existed.