holding that “[t]he 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: abuse and neglected children”
How later courts described this case
- holding that “[t]he 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: abuse and neglected children”
- considering that social services agency was repeatedly notified of father’s abuse and neglect of two children, and that agency was required by law to conduct prompt investigation and to take certain actions necessary to protect individually identified children, agency’s breach of statutory duty was actionable
- finding a protected class of abused children in the Child Abuse Protection Act, which mandated actions by the District (citing Morgan v. District of Columbia, supra, 468 A.2d at 1314)
- affirming dismissal of negligence claims against supervisory officials in their individual capacities where “[t]he complaint alleged no facts suggesting personal involvement in this case by either of them,” and because “as public officials they cannot be held liable in tort for the acts of their subordinates under a respondeat superior theory unless they directed or countenanced the tortious acts”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
STEADMAN, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result. I think that the particular facts of this case as alleged, with the two-part Platt test applied as indicated in footnote 5 of the majority opinion, and coupled with the wording of the statute at issue, precluded the granting of summary judgment. I go no further to dispose of this appeal.