Court Opinion

ID: 9754092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:43:15.766568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:48.234819
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
CATHELL, J. which BATTAGLIA, J., joins.
I dissent. This is a tragic case. And it is not an isolated case. With the numbers of interactions between the Departments of Social Services and children these types of very tragic cases are repeated more often then any of us believe is acceptable. One is too many. We all know, however, that there will be more than one. But the actions of the Departments of Social Services are not the cause of these tragedies. The cause goes much deeper than the administrative oversight over these cases.
The Department does not make parents kill their children. I do not know what in society is creating the conditions that seem to be causing the increasing levels of infanticide, but I have no hesitation in saying that the Department of Social *197Services is not the causative factor. Thus, in my view, the action taken by the majority in this case, in addition to being legally wrong, will have little, if any, effect in reducing the instances of infanticide or even the killing of older children. Its main direct effect will be to create a bonanza for trial attorneys, while its collateral effect will be to create high levels of confusion among the ranks of personnel in the numerous administrative agencies in Maryland with respect to the use of the discretion they are charged with exercising.
With that said, this case, in addition to being tragic, is, in a legal sense, also a hard case. And there is an old saying that “hard cases it is said make hard law.” The majority creates today the template for tens of thousands of lawsuits that heretofore did not exist. For the first time in the history of this State, an employee of the State who does not commit an affirmative act placing a victim in danger and who investigates the matter prior to the injury to the victim and makes a discretionary determination that no further action is needed, but is mistaken and the subject of the investigation is later injured, now creates liability for himself or herself and for the State.
The majority’s holding cannot be logically limited to the factual parameters of this case — the death of a child. The majority’s reasoning does not, and cannot, logically limit the applications it now creates, by the result of the mistake in the exercise of the social worker’s discretion, i.e., that it will only apply if the injury to the child exceeds a certain level. Duty, if it exists, is not determined by the degree of injury. Once the duty is created, as the majority today creates it, a breach of that duty will be actionable if any injury occurs. The cause of action the majority creates today will apply equally to an estranged spouse alleging to the Department that the custodial spouse is “spanking” the child too hard, and therefore abusing the child. The Department, in order to protect itself from litigation, will have to remove the child if bruising appears because of the fear that some fact-finder, a judge or a jury, (some of which may share a completely different parenting philosophy) will consider the bruising to be abuse. And, *198even if it initially determines that it does not constitute abuse, when the estranged parent calls again and reports that spanking is continuing and it is now too severe, the Department will have to initiate a new inspection — every time there is another allegation.
Moreover, with the majority’s decision, virtually every discretionary action of every employee of any administrative agency, whose employees by statute are required to perform discretionary functions, will now subject the State to civil suits where none existed before.
Factually, this is not a case where the respective employee failed to investigate (although they did not do so promptly). Prior to the injuries complained of here, the employees investigated and made a discretionary decision. It turned out to be wrong — tragically wrong.
It is accurate to note, as the majority does, that the estranged father continued to make allegations of abuse. But, any trial judge, or for that matter, any person familiar with what happens in divorce and domestic situations where parents are fighting over children, knows that it is not at all unusual for one parent to continue to accuse the other of abuse or improper actions toward the children. With the majority’s decision today, in such cases where one parent is continually complaining about the other parent’s treatment of children (and such complaints are not at all unusual in the real world where people live), the Department will virtually have to assign an investigator to maintain a perpetual investigation as to every such situation. Or the Department may choose an easier course to protect itself by taking the child away from the custodial parent upon the first report of suspected abuse and thereby protecting the State, and its employees, from lawsuits of the nature the majority authorizes today.
This Court has never before authorized this type of suit against the State, based upon a “special relationship” arising from a statute of this type. And the majority does not argue to the contrary. The majority mentions several cases in its discussion of the special relationship/negligence issue. The *199first case is Remsburg v. Montgomery, 376 Md. 568, 831 A.2d 18 (2003). The majority uses Remsburg for its statement in respect to duty, that Remsburg in turn quoted from Muthukumarana v. Montgomery, 370 Md. 447, 805 A.2d 372 (2002), and goes on to use the language of those two cases to state the general Maryland standard for the creation of duties out of which negligence cases can arise. Then the majority does not follow that standard.
Remsburg was a case where it was alleged that the leader of a hunting party had, in part because of the existence of statutes regulating hunting, a duty to protect a person accidentally shot by his son. Admittedly, none of the statutes mentioned were as specific as the statute in the case at bar. Nonetheless, this Court found no duty arising out of those statutes that would support an action in negligence against the father for the actions of the son.
Muthukumarana was actually two cases involving allegations that 911 operators had duties arising out of statutes that created actionable negligence causes of action if the operators made errors resulting in injury to others. This Court found no actionable negligence against the operators who had, in one instance, made mistakes in furnishing information to responding officers, the result of which was a death. We have recently described our holding in Muthukumarana (and Fried v. Archer, its companion case) in the case of Patton v. USA Rugby, 381 Md. 627, 851 A.2d 566 (2004).
The position the majority takes today, is, in my view, in direct conflict with this Court’s decision in Muthukumarana, where we specifically held, as we just described it in Patton, that System 911 operators, in spite of their specific functions to provide protective assistance to emergency callers, had to have “acted affirmatively to protect,” in order for a duty to exist out of which an action in negligence could arise.
I see little difference, if any difference, in the 911 operators’ cases and the present case and I do not believe that the present case can be logically reconciled. The question will now arise: Are this Court’s cases, previously mentioned and *200the earlier cases I shall mention later, now overruled? If so, does the majority really understand that they are overruling the prior cases? If they are not overruling the prior cases, what will happen when a lawyer for a client is advising the client on what the law is in respect to “special relationships?” Does he or she follow the prior line of cases because they have not been specifically overruled, or the latest — the present case? Or, does he or she flip a coin? I simply do not believe that the present case, and the 911 operators’ cases, and some of the prior cases I have and will mention, can compatibly coexist as the law of Maryland.
In Ashburn v. Anne Arundel County, 306 Md. 617, 510 A.2d 1078 (1986), this Court found no negligence where a police officer told an intoxicated person to discontinue driving and that person, after the officer had left, began to drive again and hit and injured a pedestrian, basing the decision in part on the fact that the police officer there involved had not taken any affirmative action in directing the driver to do what later resulted in serious injuries or death to another. In the present case, the agency employees acted, exercised discretion, albeit poorly, and then failed to take other affirmative action — they failed to act further. They did not direct anyone to do anything that resulted in injury and death to the child. As in Ashbum, no act of commission occurred in the case sub judice, yet the majority departs from the holding of Ashbum to create a new cause of action.
Jacques v. First National Bank, 307 Md. 527, 515 A.2d 756 (1986), did not involve a governmental defendant. It was a private action for negligence against a private defendant.
In Bobo v. State, 346 Md. 706, 697 A.2d 1371 (1997), another case cited by the majority, this Court found no duty on the part of the Clerk of the District Court to issue a recall of a warrant. One of the averments in that suit was that the clerk “ ‘breached his duty as Court Clerk to perform the tasks set forth by the State as the correct procedure to be followed in the performance of tasks of Court Clerks....’” Id. at 710, 697 A.2d at 1373. Valentine v. On Target, 353 Md. 544, 727 *201A.2d 947 (1999) was an action against a private party in which, tor several reasons, no negligence was found (there was no statute involved in the case).
The majority next cites to Williams v. Baltimore, 359 Md. 101, 753 A.2d 41 (2000). Amongst other claims, the plaintiffs in Williams argued that two different statutory provisions created duties out of which special relationships arose. The statute there involved, stated, in relevant part, “[a] local law enforcement officer responding to the request for assistance shall: (1) Protect the complainant from harm when responding to the request....” Id. at 124, 753 A.2d at 53. It contained several other provisions requiring officers to aid complainants in retrieving their belongings. We did a lengthy review of the legislative history of that statute before limiting its scope to imposing very specific and limited obligations upon the responding police officers. However, in its language that statute was every bit as specific, if not more so, than the statute the majority today holds creates an unlimited (the social services workers had made an investigation and exercised discretion) duty upon social services workers to reinvestigate, seemingly ad infinitum, whenever a parent is dissatisfied with the prior investigation. More important, the majority in this case holds that, even in the absence of an affirmative act, such a statute generates a duty out of which actionable negligence actions can arise when criminal acts are subsequently committed by others. This is EXACTLY what the Court said in Williams could NOT create actionable negligence. In Williams, we specifically declined to impose such a duty based upon a statute no less protective than the one in the case at bar. We stated in that context:
“As we have said, it is clear that the intent of the Legislature in enacting section 798 clearly was not to create a duty to protect the victim for an indefinite amount of time: it was only to provide protection while responding to the request .... It is clear from the statute that it is limited to an officer who is responding to a complaint of domestic violence where the violence continues in the officer’s presence, and *202an officer who is accompanying a person to recover personal effects.”
Id. at 128-29, 753 A.2d at 55.
We also discussed the General Order that was alleged to have created a special relationship arising out of a statute. The General Order, in relevant part, provided that its purpose was to “[p]rotect the victim of a domestic incident from physical harm.” Id. at 130, 753 A.2d at 56. That statement is at least as specific as the statute the majority relies on in the case at bar. In addressing the General Order, we stated, in the most relevant part, “[t]o require a law enforcement officer to protect a victim of domestic abuse from all potential future possibilities of domestic assault would be absurd. That could not have been the intention of the police department in drafting this order, and we are not prepared to create such a duty.” Id. at 130, 753 A.2d at 57. With the case sub judice, the Court is now prepared, and is, creating such a duty in the absence of any affirmative action on the part of the employees of the Department.
Ultimately, the Williams case was remanded because of the police officer’s specific affirmative act of commanding the victims to remain in the house because he would be right outside — and then he left, after which they were attacked. We noted in Williams that there had been an actual affirmative act, such as we later found lacking in the 911 operators’ cases and which is specifically lacking in this case, upon which a special relationship might have been created out of which a duty might have arisen. And it was for that reason, and no other, that Williams was remanded for the consideration by a fact-finder as to whether that affirmative act created a special relationship out of which a duty to protect was created, giving rise to actionable negligence.
The majority summarily dismisses this Court’s holding in the case of Lamb v. Hopkins, 303 Md. 236, 492 A.2d 1297 (1985) (as well it must in order to reach the result it wants to reach). In Lamb, a third party argued that because a probation officer had a duty to initiate action to revoke an individu*203al’s probation, but took no action, and the individual, while driving drunk, seriously injured a child, the officer’s duty created a special relationship out of which a negligence action could arise. We disagreed, primarily on the basis that the duty to initiate revocation was to the court.
In similar fashion, the majority now disposes of the Court of Special Appeals’ case of Willow Tree Learning Center, Inc. v. Prince George’s County, 85 Md.App. 508, 584 A.2d 157 (1991), saying simply that it “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 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, too, is a far cry from what we have here....” The majority opinion’s characterization of Willow Tree, as “a far cry from what we have here,” is completely wrong, because the majority’s opinion in this case omits from its discussion the very issue in Willow Tree that makes it very relevant to the instant case. In Willow Tree, that court, very early in the opinion, discussed one of the main arguments of the plaintiffs: “The Sanders argue that the frayed rope was a violation of applicable safety regulations, and that under Md. Regs.Code title 10, § .05.01.16 (‘COMAR’) and the Prince George’s County Code, a duty was created on the part of the appellees [Prince George’s County] to discover and report it.” Id. at 513-14, 584 A.2d at 160 (alteration added) (footnote omitted).
That court then discussed the statute applicable there, which was similar, in fact, to the one at issue here. It stated:
“The public general statute ... provided that:
“(b) ... These rules and regulations shall:
(1) Ensure safe and sanitary conditions in group day care centers.
*204(2) Ensure proper care, protection, and supervision of children____”
Id. at 514, 584 A.2d at 160. As can easily be seen, the statute in Willow Tree had specific references to the protection of children — such as the statute in the instant case. That court then stated:
“Subsection (2) focuses on children, and reiterates the goal of safety.... The position of the appellants, were we to adopt it, would result in the creation of a duty to inspect for all possible risks, and would effectively make the County and its inspectors liability insurers of day care centers.... ”
Id. at 514, 584 A.2d at 160. While I agree that Willow Tree does not support the position the majority now wants to take, it is simply wrong to characterize it as “a far cry from what we have here.” In my view, they cannot both simultaneously exist as the law of Maryland.
The majority reads some of the out-of-state cases differently than do I. It is one thing to say that they are not persuasive — it is obvious in any event that they have not persuaded the majority. But you simply cannot make something “a far different situation from the one now before us” merely by saying so. In my view, any objective reader of Marshall v. Montgomery County Children Servs. Bd., 92 Ohio St.3d 348, 750 N.E.2d 549 (2001) and Beebe v. Fraktman, 22 Kan.App.2d 493, 921 P.2d 216 (1996), would have to say that those two cases are very similar to the case at bar. In Marshall, the social services workers were already aware that the mother was an abuser as to other children. After the child at issue was born, the agency received a call from the child’s father (just as in the present case) who, while not reporting actual abuse, asked the agency to investigate the situation. Eventually, the social worker was, after four tries, able to enter the home to investigate and made a finding of no abuse — just as did the social service workers in the present case. They then closed the case, just as did the workers in this case. The child was later killed. The only real difference in Marshall is that they received no follow-up calls from the father and the calls *205received had not been specific (although they had to have been expressions of concern for the well-being of the child and the workers were already aware of the parent’s inclination toward committing violent acts against her children). Factually, then, I suggest that there were many similarities. However, as the majority states, there was a statute that contained express language limiting the ability of subdivisions to be sued based upon other statutes that imposed responsibilities upon subdivisions. In other words, in Ohio there was a statute that said what this State’s common law said prior to the Court’s opinion in the case sub judice. What the statute stated in Marshall, the doctrine of stare decisis provides in this case, at least until the majority chose to abandon the doctrine.
The Kansas case of Beebe is almost exactly on point. It may not persuade the majority but it certainly is not “inapposite.”
I accept the majority’s position that, to it, Nelson v. Freeman, 537 F.Supp. 602 (W.D.Mo.1982), is not persuasive. I wish it were. In fact, I do not see how it is not on point and not persuasive. The Missouri child abuse statute at issue in Nelson was similar to the statutes in the present case. It stated, in relevant part, as discussed by the federal district court:
“The second objective [of the statute] is furthered by requiring the local D.F.S. office to investigate reported cases of child abuse and, if necessary, provide ‘protective services’ or contact the appropriate law enforcement authority.”
Id. at 606.
The federal district court then quoted portions of the statute:
“1. The division shall establish and maintain a telephone service....
2. The division shall maintain a central registry.. ..
*2064. The local office ... shall cause a thorough investigation to be made immediately or no later than within twenty-four hours [familiar?] ... the primary purpose of such investigation being the protection of the child....
5. Protective social services shall be provided by the local office ... to prevent further abuse.... ”
Id. (alteration added).
The court then described the issue, which plaintiffs asserted created an individual duty, as:
“The question presented by the third ground alleged ... is whether the alleged failure of D.F.S. officials to comply with the statutory duty created by [the statute], in particular the duty to ‘cause a thorough investigation to be made’ of reported child abuse, states a cause of action in favor of plaintiffs under applicable Missouri tort law. Under Missouri law, ‘Before an act is said to be negligent, there must exist a duty to the individual complaining.’ Whether a duty was owed by these defendants to these plaintiffs under the facts of this case depends upon whether, under applicable Missouri law, the Child Abuse reporting statute must be found to have created only a public duty and not a duty to individuals, and whether, under the allegations of plaintiffs’ complaint, plaintiffs could be said to fall within some exception to the general applicable rule in that D.F.S. officials, by their actions, could be said to have established a specific duty to these plaintiffs.”
Id. at 607 (alterations added) (citation omitted).
The facts alleged in Nelson (initially a sexual-abuse case, but one that did result in a death), accepted for the purposes of that court’s resolution, included that:
“[Defendants Keatings and White undertook to investigate some but not all of the hotline calls concerning the aforenamed Nelson children.... ‘[Defendants] fail[ed] to adequately investigate or detect the aforedescribed child abuse and mistreatment ... failed to adequately investigate the aforedescribed reputations and prior bad acts ... improper*207ly classifying ... welfare investigations as unsubstantiated, thereby foreclosing future investigation of the plight of the Nelson children ... failing to remove the Nelson children from the residence....”’
Id. at 604. How much more similar could the allegations in that case be compared to those in this present case? The federal district court in Nelson, interestingly, in referring to the seminal Missouri case, noted that it had been based on an old Supreme Court case in respect to conservators of the peace and their duties to individuals, arising out of Maryland. It involved allegations that a Maryland sheriff had not performed his duty to suppress riots, and a citizen had been hurt as a result. That citizen then sued the sheriff on his bond. The Supreme Court of the United States in South v. Maryland, 18 How. 396, 59 U.S. 396, 15 L.Ed. 433 (1856), noted:
“[T]he sheriff, being present, the plaintiff, Pottle, applied to him for protection, and requested him to keep the peace of the State of Maryland, he, the said sheriff, having power and authority so to do. That the sheriff neglected and refused to protect and defend the plaintiff, and to keep the peace, wherefore, it is charged, ‘the sheriff did not well and truly execute and perform the duties required of him by the laws of said State’.... It assumes as a postulate, that every breach or neglect of a public duty subjects the officer to a civil suit by any individual who, in consequence thereof, has suffered loss or injury ... because he has not ‘executed and performed all the duties required of and imposed on him by the laws of the State.’ ”
South, 59 U.S. at 401. The Supreme Court answered the issue by stating that, “[i]t [the sheriff’s] is a public duty, for neglect of which he is amenable to the public, and punishable by indictment only” (alteration added). Id. at 403.
In Nelson, that court also quoted from the case of Crouch v. Hall, 406 N.E.2d 303, 304 (Ind.App.1980):
“In our research we have found it overwhelmingly held that liability to an individual for damages will not lie where the officer or the public body owes a duty to the general *208public as a whole, but it is not shown that the officer or public body owes a specific duty or has a special relationship to the individual.” [Emphasis added.]
The Nelson court then held:
“[T]his Court must conclude that the Missouri Child Abuse statute created only a duty to the public and not to individuals, and therefore cannot be said to support a cause of action in favor of individuals.
“But the public duty to investigate imposed by the statute does not suffice to establish a specific duty to these plaintiffs as individuals, the breach of which would, under applicable Missouri law, entitle plaintiffs to a private cause of action....
“Neither the cases cited by plaintiffs nor those already discussed support plaintiffs’ argument that reliance upon public officials to perform their public duty will transform a duty to the public into a duty to individuals.
“The Court has not overlooked the allegations in the complaint that defendants ‘willfully refused’ to perform the duties mandated by the Missouri Child Abuse statute and demonstrated ‘complete indifference to or conscious disregard for the safety of others.’ Those allegations do not state a cause of action under Missouri law.
“Finally, it should be noted that the declaration in South v. Maryland alleged that the sheriff, although present and able to do so, ‘did then and there neglect and refuse to protect and defend the said Jonathan from the said unlawful conduct and threatened violence of the said evil-disposed persons, and to preserve and keep the peace of the State of Maryland____’ Nevertheless, the court concluded that the declaration had set forth no sufficient cause of action.”
*209Nelson, 587 F.Supp. at 610-12 (citation omitted) (footnotes omitted).
Accordingly, I do not believe that any of the cases cited by the majority as inapposite actually are. They are all on point and relevant to the debate. Because the present Court, after more than one hundred and fifty years of the Court agreeing with the concepts of the cases, now chooses to disagree with them — does not make them inapposite. It seems to me, that if stare decisis is not going to be controlling, the Court ought to have the intellectual honesty to admit it and overrule the cases that hold to the contrary, instead of using semantical devices, i.e., an overuse of the word distinguish — when there are not any distinguishing factors. Here the majority abandons stare decisis. As important, and distressing, is the fact that lawyers are now left with two lines of cases. One line involves numerous cases dating back a hundred years or more. The other line being this single case. They cannot know what advice to proffer to clients. If the Court is going to change the law it should, at least, specifically state that it is overruling the prior cases.
Again, I point out that this is not simply a case of an agency with a duty to investigate, not investigating. The agency investigated before the child was killed and specifically found no abuse. That finding may well be wrong, in hindsight unquestionably so, but it was the agency’s decision to make, not this Court’s. In my view, the statute mandates an inspection when a report is made, not continual inspections ad infinitum when the same person makes continual complaints about the same alleged course of abusive conduct.
Perhaps my most strenuous objection to what the majority is doing with the opinion in this case concerns the broader effects of the decision. There are a multitude of state and local governmental and administrative entities in this State, upon which are imposed by statute and regulation a myriad of responsibilities to the people of the State. The responsibilities of these agencies, for the most part, are performed by persons as imperfect as are we. Regrettably, but inevitably, they are, *210when exercising discretion, going to make mistakes. Often, as in this case, those mistakes may lead to tragedy.
A very similar statute to the one the majority now states creates a duty, out of which under the majority’s holding in this case, negligence actions against state agencies can now arise, is found at Health-General Article, Title 19, Health Care Facilities, Subtitle 3. Hospitals and Related Institutions, Part VI. Rights of Individuals, § 19-347, “Abuse prohibited.” In that section, reports of abuse are to be made to “an appropriate law enforcement agency, the Secretary [of Health and Mental Hygiene], or the Department of Aging.” The statute then requires that “the law enforcement agency, with the assistance of the Secretary, shall: (i) Investigate thoroughly each report of an alleged abuse; and (ii) Attempt to insure the protection of the alleged victim.” The statute then contains an extensive assemblage of requirements, based upon the exercise of discretion by various entities, for reporting allegations, investigations etc. If, at any stage of such processes, a mistake is made, with the majority’s decision today, a potential lawsuit has been created where none before existed.
Another example is Health-General Article (dealing with the developmentally disabled), § 7-1005(c) “Duties of law-enforcement agencies,” that requires a law enforcement agency that receives a report of abuse to “(i) Investigate thoroughly each report ... and (ii) Attempt to ensure the protection of the alleged victim.” With the Court’s opinion in the present case, if a police agency conducts an investigation and mistakenly makes a determination that no abuse has occurred, it will have subjected itself (or the governing entity of which it is a part — or both) to tort liability. Interestingly, the Legislature has, in another section relating to other requirements, shown in this Title that when it wants to create civil liability in respect to health issues it knows how to do so. In Subtitle 11. Prohibited Acts; Penalties; Civil Liability, § 7-1101(d) the Legislature provided specifically:
“(d) Civil damages. — In addition to any other penalties specified in this section, an individual who is admitted or held against the individual’s will by a person who is provid*211ing services without a license may recover civil damages from that person and from any other person who knowingly participates in the admission or detention.”
The inclusion of this section certainly establishes that the General Assembly knows how to create civil liability when it establishes programs for the protection of the general population.
Section 10-705 of the Health-General Article contains almost exactly the same provisions as Title 7, requiring law enforcement entities who receive reports of abuse of another broad class of persons (mentally ill individuals) to investigate and secure protection for them. As with the case at bar, if the agency in the exercise of its discretionary function of investigation makes a mistake, civil tort liability, as a result of the majority’s position in this case, will attach.
Health-General Article, § 14-407 requires “The Department” to: “(1) Investigate complaints received regarding the youth camp; and (2) Require appropriate training, including knowledge of outdoor camping, for a camp inspector.” With the majority’s opinion in the case at bar, the door to civil tort liability against the governing entity charged with inspecting is opened, where a camper is injured in a youth camp, based upon a claim of inadequate inspections or a mistake in inspection, or even based upon a claim by a person injured in a youth camp that the inspectors were not adequately trained.
The Health-General Article also requires all medical and cytology laboratories to be initially inspected and to thereafter be periodically inspected. See § 17-202(b) of the Health-General Article. With the Court’s opinion today, if an inspection is not conducted on a sufficiently periodic basis, or if it is and existing problems are not discovered during the inspection, and the oversight results in injury to a person, civil tort liability, under the reasoning of the majority’s opinion, might well attach.
Health-General Article, § 18-208 requires a county health officer to: “1. investigate the suspected disease; and 2. Act properly to prevent the spread of the disease.” Under the *212holding of today, if that health officer’s investigation, albeit in good faith, is flawed, or the actions he takes to prevent the spread of the disease are not as adequate as they might conceivably be, all those persons who might subsequently contract the disease will be citing Horridge as their legions march to the court houses and file suits against (in effect) their respective counties. See also Health-General Article, § 19-407 (requiring “The Department” to “Inspect the operations of each home health agency to determine whether it is meeting the requirements ... ”).
Section 20-302 of the Health-General Article states that the “Secretary” may “investigate all nuisances that affect the public health and devise means for the control of these nuisances.” If a public nuisance also constitutes a private nuisance, e.g., sewage leaking from failed septic systems, is the State liable under the majority’s reasoning of the day, to a specific adjacent landowner whose property is overrun by the sewage if the State does inspect and makes a mistake? Is the State going to be liable if the health of numerous citizens’ is impaired? Other provisions of Title 20 require the Secretary, upon receiving certain complaints, to investigate whether certain conditions are likely to “injure any adjacent property____” If the Secretary does not act promptly, or if he acts and mistakenly determines that the condition will not injure adjacent property or persons, and then it does, will the State be liable in individual actions? Subsequent to Horridge, a strong argument can be made that the specific property or the person, are just such types of properties (“adjacent”) or persons that statute was designed to protect. I fail to see how such a situation could be distinguished (except perhaps as to the severity of the result — but, of course, court decisions are not to be result-driven).
While the general provisions of the regulation of food establishments, i.e., restaurants etc., provide for permissive inspections, and, presumably, the State or a local health department could argue that illnesses relating to food do not result from the failure of a required inspection, some areas of food regulation require mandatory inspections. Health-General Article, *213§ 21-418, requires initial and periodic inspection of facilities involved in the production of milk. Under Horridge, it will be argued, for example, that the litigant sickened by bad milk products was injured as a result of a deficient investigation or inspection. Section 21-809 of the Health-General Article also requires mandatory inspections in respect to frozen food facilities.
Health-General Article, Title 24, Miscellaneous Provisions, Subtitle Jh Bedding, which in large part is concerned with the disinfecting of used bedding, permits, in Part III, § 24-4.16, the inspection by the Secretary of all places where bedding is made, renovated or sold. Though perhaps an extreme example (except to the person being bitten), under Horridge, an argument could be made that the State is liable to a person who has been subject to bedbug infestations after purchasing a used mattress with a disinfected tag affixed by an entity inspected by the Secretary. Certainly, the class of persons that statute purports to protect includes the purchasers of disinfected mattresses.
Health-Occupation Article, § 9-314, “Investigations; grounds for reprimands, suspensions, and revocations,” provides that the “[State] Board [of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators] shall investigate and take appropriate action as to any complaint ... that a licensee has failed to meet any standard of the Board.” After the majority’s opinion becomes the law in Maryland, if the Board investigates, but mistakenly determines that standards are being met (when actually a standard is not being met), and a person is injured as a result, an action will lie against the Board, i.e., the State. Section 14-303 of the Family Law Article, in respect to “vulnerable adult[s],” requires a “local department” upon a report to “begin a thorough investigation.” In that investigation the local department is to determine whether the adult is vulnerable and whether there has been “abuse, neglect ... or exploitation.” Ultimately, it must make a determination whether the adult is in need of “protective services.” With the Court’s opinion in the present case, all administrative departments (whether of State or local governments) become *214liable in tort if they make a mistake in any of their discretionary determinations.
Public Safety Article, Title 5, Firearms, Subtitle 3. Handgun Permits, § 5-306, among many other things, requires the Secretary to conduct an investigation into an applicant’s “propensity for violence or instability.” Such an investigation and determination are necessarily subjective, and the Secretary’s performance of such an investigation involves the exercise of discretion. Subsequent to the case at bar, it will be argued that the Secretary should be liable to those injured by such a permit holder, because the act of injury itself is proof that the wrongdoer had a propensity for violence or was unstable, and thus the exercise of discretion was wrong, and the State should be liable. The same could be said of firefighting officials. Title 6, Subtitle 3, § 6-303, requires every fire department or volunteer squad to run a criminal records check of applicants and permits them to exercise discretion in the hiring of persons with criminal records. Under § 6-307, “Inspections,” the State Fire Marshall is required to inspect a large classification of public and non-dwelling private buildings for fire exits and safety standards. If an inspection is defective, a fire occurs, and injuries and/or deaths occur, will the State be liable for tort damages, based solely upon the defective inspection?
Under Title 12, Subtitle 2. Statewide Building and Housing Codes, § 12-202(e) of the Public Safety Article, the Department of Housing and Community Development “shall investigate [any alleged violation of the ‘Maryland Accessibility Code’ (a code to make buildings accessible to persons with physical disabilities) ] to determine if a violation exists.” Presumably, if the Department makes a mistake in determining whether a building is “accessible,” and as a result a disabled person is injured attempting to access a building, the State will now be liable. This statutory provision as to the subjects it is designed to protect is at least as specific as the statute the majority bases the creation of this new liability on in the case at bar.
*215Agricultural Article, § 3-104, “Local health authorities and veterinarians required to report contagious and infectious diseases,” states “every local health authority of every county shall investigate each reported case of contagious or infectious disease of livestock or poultry in the county. If the authority finds a contagious or infectious disease, it shall report to the Secretary [of Agriculture].” The Secretary is given a broad range of powers to deal with the disease, including the destruction of any animal exposed to the disease. Under this authority, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of chickens have been destroyed over the years. Suppose the health authority fails to investigate, or does investigate but makes a mistake in diagnosing, or failing to diagnose the disease, and millions of chickens are either wrongfully destroyed, or, if exposed are not destroyed and they infect other chickens. Under the majority’s holding, actions in negligence against the State may arise in respect to damages or consequential damages, even where the injury is to a person’s livelihood, as opposed to his or her health.
The Labor and Employment Article, in § 3-206 in respect to work permits, subparagraph (d)(2)(i) permits the Commissioner to issue work permits for certain occupations not normally permitted to a minor if, “after investigation, the Commissioner determines that neither the work nor the work site where the work is to be performed is hazardous to the minor.... ” If a minor is later injured doing the work, it will be argued that the Commissioner, in his required investigation, made a mistake, and that under Horridge, the State is liable for the damages to the minor.
In the same article, in § 5.5-114, “Request for inspection,” railroad employees may request inspections of railroads. Upon receipt of such requests, if the Commissioner determines that there are reasonable grounds supporting the request, he “shall conduct an investigation as soon as practicable to determine whether the danger or threat exists.” He or she is then given powers to deal with the findings of the investigation. Now, with the majority’s opinion, if the Commissioner receives such a request and does not conduct an investigation *216as soon as some court fact-finding entity, after the fact, believes was practicable, or if the Commission conducts a prompt investigation, but in the exercise of his or her discretion, determines that no threat exists, but is mistaken, and an accident happens because of a defect, the State will be liable in tort. Obviously, this particular statute is designed to protect a class of persons, which includes passengers. If an Amtrak passenger train derails in Maryland, with hundreds, probably thousands of passengers, the State will join the railroad companies as defendants — probably as the prime defendant in that the passenger railroads are generally in a state of financial insecurity, whereas the State has the ultimate deep pockets.
Business Regulation Article, Subtitle Jh which deals with the regulation of amusement attractions, requires, in § 3-402, “Inspections and investigations,” that the Commissioner of Labor and Industry “shall inspect: (1) each amusement attraction at an amusement park annually; (2) each amusement attraction, if moved, before it begins operation at another location; and (3) each new or modified amusement attraction before it begins public operation.” The Commissioner is also required to investigate complaints or accidents and to reinvestigate the amusement attraction. With the decision in the present case, if the Commission makes a mistake during any of the many (given the frequency with which amusement attractions may be moved) investigations he conducts, and someone is injured by a defective ride, the State will now join the amusement attraction operator as a defendant.
The Environment Article, in § 10-202, requires the Secretary of the Environment to investigate any complaint made by three or more people in respect to certain alleged conditions that include a condition where there exists “[a]ny water in which mosquito larvae breed.” The still bodies of fresh water in this State, as well as much of the brackish waters, are susceptible (one who is frequently mosquito-bitten supposes) to inspections by the Secretary. That includes most of the Eastern Shore. If the Secretary does not make a prompt inspection, and a person is bitten as a result of mosquitos *217hatching from the larvae in waters the Secretary had been informed contain larvae, and the bitee contracts malaria, West Nile or any other mosquito-transmitted disease, is the State going to be liable?
Inmates in correctional institutions, in addition to the customers of the various State and local health organizations that I have not mentioned (and there may be scores, if not hundreds of them), students and their parents in secondary and higher education entities, all of them, and more, will now look for any statute that imposes responsibilities upon administrative agencies (including the Administrative Office of the Courts), and using the majority’s opinion go to court anytime they perceive that a State employee has not exercised his discretion appropriately, and they have been damaged as a result. If that is to be the future of litigation against the State and its local governments, it should be a policy decision by the Legislature not by this Court.
Today, for the first time, the majority imposes tort liability against governmental entities arising out of discretionary governmental decisions where the state actor has not acted affirmatively to place the alleged victim in danger.
While it will not happen right away, unless the Plaintiffs bar is in, and stays in, a state of mental hibernation, the rain will come. A deluge of litigation will fall upon (and into) the State’s big pockets.
The Circuit Court correctly applied the law as it existed prior to this case. I would affirm its correct decision.
Judge BATTAGLIA has authorized me to note that she joins in this dissent.