Court Opinion

ID: 9663160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:29:36.551658+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:46.105453
License: Public Domain

TORPY, J.,
concurring specially.
I do not think that Appellant’s duty was limited to the period during which it had actual custody of Appellees. In my view, the existence of the special relationship with both Appellees and Mr. McDonald triggered some ongoing duty to control *668Mr. McDonald by, at a minimum, expelling Mm from Appellant’s activities as a parent or volunteer. To merely lecture him about the propriety of taking athletes to his van hardly discharges the duty to control. I also think Appellant had a duty to warn parents or guardians of this particular danger before the athletes were exposed to the danger.
I think this is a case for the application of Restatement (Second) of Torts section 302B (1965), which provides:
An act or an omission may be negligent if the actor realizes or should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to another through the conduct of the other or a third person which is intended to cause harm, even though such conduct is criminal.
One of the comments to this section states that it applies:
Where the actor has brought into contact or association with the other a person whom the actor knows or should know to be peculiarly likely to commit intentional misconduct, under circumstances which afford a peculiar opportunity or temptation for such misconduct.
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 302B cmt. e.D. Under this theory, it makes no difference whether the incident occurred while the victims were in Appellant’s actual custody.
I am persuaded by the decision of the Supreme Court of Washington in C.J.C. v. Corporation of Catholic Bishop of Yakima, 138 Wash.2d 699, 985 P.2d 262 (1999), and would adopt its holding. There, under analogous facts, the court imposed liability on a church after its deacon had molested a child of the congregation because of:
(1) the special relationship between the Church and [the] deacon ...; (2) the special relationship between the Church and the plaintiffs; (3) the alleged knowledge of the risk of harm possessed by the Church; and (4) the alleged causal connection between [the deacon’s] position in the Church and the resulting harm.
Id. at 275.