District of Columbia v. Hampton

• Citation: 666 A.2d 30
• Decision Date: 29 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 90-CV-1148.,90-CV-1148.
• Parties: DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant, v. Debra Ali HAMPTON, Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Columbia District

666 A.2d 30

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant, v. Debra Ali HAMPTON, Appellee.

No. 90-CV-1148.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued March 24, 1992.

Decided September 29, 1995.

As Amended December 4, 1995.

Edward E. Schwab, Assistant Corporation Counsel, with whom John Payton, Corporation Counsel at the time the brief was filed, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel, were on the brief, for appellant.

H. Vincent McKnight, Jr., with whom Karl N. Marshall, Washington, DC, was on the brief, for appellee.

Before FERREN, TERRY, and KING, Associate Judges.

TERRY, Associate Judge:

In this negligence case the District of Columbia appeals from the denial of its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Appellee, Debra Ali Hampton, is the mother of Mykeeda Hampton, a two-year-old girl who died while in the care of her foster mother, Geraldine Stevenson. In August 1987 Mrs. Stevenson left Mykeeda at home with her two sons, aged fifteen and twelve, for over ten hours while she ran several errands, and during that time Mykeeda was beaten to death by the twelve-year-old. Appellee brought this suit against the District of Columbia and Mrs. Stevenson raising several claims: that Mrs. Stevenson was negligent in leaving Mykeeda with the two boys; that Mrs. Stevenson was the District's agent, so that the District was liable for her negligent acts under the doctrine of respondeat superior; that the District of Columbia Department of Human Services (DHS) was negligent in selecting Mrs. Stevenson to be Mykeeda's foster mother; and that DHS was negligent in monitoring Mykeeda's care after she had been placed in Mrs. Stevenson's home. The jury returned a verdict in Mrs. Hampton's favor. The District filed a motion seeking a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, or a remittitur, all of which the trial court denied.

On appeal the District makes two assignments of error. First, it contends that Mrs. Hampton was required to introduce expert testimony to prove the standard of care applicable to social workers involved in foster care, and that without such testimony the jury could not have found the District negligent in placing and monitoring Mykeeda. Second, the District maintains that it cannot be held liable for Mrs. Stevenson's negligence on a theory of respondeat superior because she was not its agent. We hold that the conduct of the DHS social worker responsible for monitoring Mykeeda's foster care was not self-evidently negligent, and hence that expert testimony on the applicable standard of care was required. Since none was presented, and since we also hold that the evidence failed to show that Mrs. Stevenson was the agent of the District of Columbia, we reverse the judgment of the trial court.¹

I

In the fall of 1985 Geraldine Stevenson decided that she would like to be a foster parent. At that time she was divorced and had four sons living with her, ranging in age from ten to seventeen. In October she began attending DHS's training and orientation program for foster parents,² and when that was completed, she filed an application to become a foster parent. A DHS social worker completed an investigation of Mrs. Stevenson in May 1986 which included several visits to her home, a check of her references and her employment, interviews with the four boys, and an evaluation of Mrs. Stevenson's day care plan for potential foster children. The social worker noted in her report that Mrs. Stevenson planned to use a next-door neighbor, Virgie Davis, as a babysitter while she was at work.³ The social worker found "no evident areas of concern" and recommended that two children be placed in Mrs. Stevenson's home.

In May 1986 Mrs. Stevenson signed a contract with DHS to be a foster parent⁴ and was given a list stating the "basic requirements" necessary to maintain a foster home.⁵ A two-week-old girl named Amber was placed in Mrs. Stevenson's home in May 1986 and remained there until Mykeeda's death in August 1987. At various times between May 1986 and May 1987 five other children were placed in the Stevenson home for periods ranging from a few days up to six months. After Mrs. Stevenson's oldest son moved away in the latter part of 1986, she was authorized to care for as many as four foster children at a time.

In May 1987 DHS removed four of Debra Hampton's children from her home and obtained court orders for their placement in foster homes. The four children were twin girls aged four, two-year-old Mykeeda, and a boy less than one year old. According to the testimony of a DHS social worker, the children were removed because Mrs. Hampton had left them alone and was not properly supervising them; in addition, her home was "generally uninhabitable" and on occasion contained no edible food.⁶ The twins were immediately placed with Geraldine Stevenson. After staying briefly in the home of her paternal grandparents, Mykeeda Hampton was placed in another foster home.

Between May and August 1987 Mrs. Stevenson brought the Hampton twins to the DHS office every week so that they could visit with their mother, their sister Mykeeda, and their brother. At some time during that period, DHS officials told Mrs. Stevenson that they wanted to place Mykeeda with her because they wanted to reunite the girl with her sisters and because her foster parent was unable to keep her. Mrs. Stevenson testified that she objected to Mykeeda's being placed with her "from the beginning" because during the family visits at DHS she had seen that Mykeeda would not talk to anyone, was not toilet-trained, and "would walk around with her head to the floor ... and looked sad all the time." According to Mrs. Stevenson, a DHS official told her that because she had a "vacancy" in her home, she had to take Mykeeda.

On August 4, 1987, Mykeeda was placed in Mrs. Stevenson's home. Mrs. Stevenson testified that on the day Mykeeda was brought to her, she told Mykeeda's social worker that the girl "was too much for me." Stevenson also acknowledged that while Mykeeda was in her care, there were two occasions on which the child was spanked. In the first incident Mrs. Stevenson herself spanked Mykeeda, leaving "a red bruise because she was an easy bruiser." Then, about a week or two later, Mrs. Stevenson's twelve-year-old son hit Mykeeda on the rear end with a wooden toy, breaking the skin. Mrs. Stevenson reported both incidents to the DHS social worker.

Mrs. Stevenson admitted in her testimony that she occasionally left Mykeeda and the other foster children at home under the supervision of her two eldest sons, who were seventeen and fifteen years old, while she went on errands which sometimes lasted as long as three hours. Although Mrs. Stevenson never told the DHS social worker about this practice, the social worker quickly realized what was going on when she would call Mrs. Stevenson's home and one of the sons would answer. On August 25, the day after Mykeeda's death, the social worker wrote in her case report that she was aware that Mrs. Stevenson sometimes left the foster children at home without adult supervision.⁷ When asked about this report at trial, the social worker testified that there had been one instance in which she telephoned the Stevenson house, and the young man who answered the phone told her that Geraldine Stevenson was not at home.

On August 24 Mrs. Stevenson went out at 7:30 a.m. to have some work done on her car. She left the four foster children (the twin girls, Mykeeda, and Amber) in the care of her fifteen-year-old and twelve-year-old sons. Mrs. Stevenson did not return home until 5:30 in the evening, but during the day she made several telephone calls to her home to check on the children and was told that everything was fine.

At about 4:30 p.m., Robin Shorts, Mrs. Stevenson's sister-in-law, came to the Stevenson apartment. She found Mrs. Stevenson's twelve-year-old son, Marcus,⁸ and three of the foster children (Amber and the twins) watching television. She went to Mykeeda's bedroom and saw her on the bed, apparently asleep. A few minutes later she sent the twelve-year-old to Mykeeda's bedroom to wake her up. When he returned with the girl in his arms, Shorts saw that Mykeeda was "limp ... just lying there" and did not appear to be breathing. Shorts immediately called for an ambulance and attempted to administer CPR, but Mykeeda could not be revived. By the time Mrs. Stevenson got back to the apartment at 5:30, an ambulance, police, and a television news crew had arrived. Mykeeda died at about 6:00 p.m.⁹ The other three foster children were removed from Mrs. Stevenson's home that evening, and her foster care license was taken away.

Mrs. Hampton filed suit against the District of Columbia and Geraldine Stevenson seeking compensatory and punitive damages under the survival statute, D.C.Code § 12-101 (1989).¹⁰ The District filed two motions for summary judgment, but they were both denied. The case then went to trial before a jury. After all the evidence was in, the District moved for a directed verdict. The court granted the motion in part, but only on the limited issue of whether the District had been negligent in training Geraldine Stevenson; as to all other issues the motion was denied. After the jury returned its verdict,¹¹ the District moved for judgment n.o.v., a new trial, or a remittitur. The court denied the motion, and the District noted this appeal.

The case was submitted to the jury on three alternative theories of liability: (1) that the District, through DHS, had negligently selected Mrs. Stevenson as a foster mother for Mykeeda, (2) that the District, through DHS, had been negligent in its monitoring and supervision of Mrs. Stevenson's performance of her duties as a foster mother, and (3) that the District was liable under principles of respondeat superior for Mrs. Stevenson's negligence because she was its agent. Since any one of these three theories, if sustained on appeal, would support the...