# Jensen v. Conrad > Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · October 5, 1984 · 747 F.2d 185 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8925980 ## Case - **Full name:** Karole K. JENSEN, as Administratrix of the Estate of Sylvia R. Brown v. Virgil L. CONRAD, in his individual and official capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services Robert Kneece, Fred G. Scott, Samuel Smith, Agnes Wilson, Oscar P. Butler, Jr., John C. Williams, Jr., and Lucy C. Trower, individually and in their official capacities as members of the State Board of the Department of Social Services Collie L. Moore, W.H. Neal, Catherine Morris, Allen Dowdy, Arlene B. Andrews, Beatrice Sumter, Robert E. Alexander, Melissa Burnette, individually and in their official capacities as members of the Richland County Board of the Department of Social Services Mary Williams and Patricia Jones, individually and in their official capacities as Social Workers for the South Carolina Department of Social Services and Barbara Locklair, individually and in her official capacity as a "Home Health Nurse" for the South Carolina Department of Social Services Appellees Karole K. JENSEN, as Administratrix of the Estate of Michael Clark, deceased v. Virgil L. CONRAD, in his individual and official capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Social Services Mary D. Dusenberry, George D. Hamilton, Oscar P. Butler, Ph.D., John C. Williams, Jr., Lucy C. Thrower, Agnes Wilson, Ph.D., and W. Jerry Fedder, individually and in their official capacities as members of the State Board of the Department of Social Services Jerry Herd, Harold E. Simpson, Ophelia S. Smith J. Furman Gerrard, and Odell Short, individually and in their official capacities as members of the Anderson County Board of the Department of Social Services and Kenneth Pryor, individually and in his official capacity as Director of the Anderson County Department of Social Services Dawn Hawkins, individually and in her official capacity as Program Director for Human Services of the Anderson County Department of Social Services Susan Straup, individually and in her official capacity as Protective Services Supervisor of the Anderson County Department of Social Services and Charlie Ann Jenkins, in their official capacities as social workers with the Anderson County Department of Social Services - **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit - **Decided:** October 5, 1984 - **Citations:** 747 F.2d 185 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Murnaghan - **Judges:** Ervin, Murnaghan - **Cited by:** 84 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8925980 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - noting that one factor to consider in evaluating whether special relationship exists is “[wjhether the state has expressly stated its desire to provide affirmative protection to a particular class or specific individuals” ## Opinion text MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge, concurring: Sometimes I yield to an impulse to embellish an opinion in a way not strictly necessary. The notion may exist that I can clarify or improve the law, even though the issue I endeavor to address is not truly presented by the case. As time goes by, however, I am coming more and more to an appreciation that, however silver the speech, silence is usually constructed from 24 karat gold. So, with deference, and despite the freshly minted pure silver from which the majority opinion has been east, I disassociate myself from everything appearing in the opinion endeavoring to establish the existence of a special relationship between the brutalized children on the one hand and the South Carolina Department of Social Services and its case workers on the other. Were the question before us, we should have to investigate whether the “special relationship” due process contention could hold water in the absence of the South Carolina legislation. Parental control of the destiny of a child may, in general, constitute so important a right that the Supreme Court might determine that a constitutional duty simply is not imposed on any state or local government employee who learns of suspected abuse to take steps to insure that a child apparently brutalized is removed from parental custody or otherwise guarded against violence from the parents. Second, assuming that, absent statute, no right exists under the Fourteenth Amendment, we should, nevertheless, have further to decide whether the South Carolina statute brings about a constitutional right of affirmative protection. Neither of those two questions is easy of resolution. The cases supporting the majority’s conclusion that there is a right (though admittedly rendered inapplicable here because of the existence of a good faith immunity defense) generally partake of the characteristic called “dicta”. They are ones which assume there is a right, but find it not applicable or not violated on the facts of the cases themselves. Accordingly, prudence dictates to me that I limit my participation in the majority opinion to concurrence in the proposition which all panel members accept: namely, that, whether or not a constitutional right to affirmative protection exists, it manifestly was not established clearly enough to permit recovery at the time that the alleged deprivations occurred. My concurrence consequently rests solely on the uncontrovertible existence in each of the cases of good faith immunity as a defense against liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8925980. Public record. Not legal advice.