Onofrio v. Department of Mental Health

• Decision Date: 19 November 1990
• Citation: 408 Mass. 605,562 N.E.2d 1341
• Parties: Joan E. ONOFRIO, administratrix, 1 v. DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH, et al. 2
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1341

562 N.E.2d 1341

408 Mass. 605

Joan E. ONOFRIO, administratrix, ¹ v. DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH, et al. ²

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Berkshire.

Argued Sept. 6, 1990.

Decided Nov. 19, 1990.

Patricia T. Martinelli, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for Dept. of Mental Health.

Michael K. Manning, Springfield, for Meridian Associates for Programs and Resources, Inc.

David O. Burbank, Pittsfield, for plaintiff.

Before LIACOS, C.J., and WILKINS, NOLAN, LYNCH, O'CONNOR and GREANEY, JJ.

O'CONNOR, Justice.

This action was brought by Patrick J. Onofrio (Onofrio), now deceased, to recover for property damage to his house and its contents caused by a fire set by a client of the defendant Department of Mental Health (DMH). The case was tried before a judge of the Superior Court sitting without a jury. Judgment was entered in the sum of $100,000 against DMH and $20,000 against Meridian Associates for Programs and Resources, Inc. (Meridian) (see G.L. c. 231, § 85K [1988 ed.], limiting tort liability of charitable corporations). Both defendants have appealed. We transferred the case from the Appeals Court on our own initiative. We affirm both judgments.

We set forth the judge's relevant findings. Onofrio purchased a twelve-room house in Pittsfield in 1980. In 1983, DMH and Meridian were parties to a contract that called for Meridian to find short-term housing for persons referred by DMH. The persons to be referred consisted of individuals "recently discharged [or] in danger of hospitalization or those requiring tracking to maintain themselves." On October 7, 1983, DMH requested that Meridian find short-term housing for John Burgess, and on October 13, Meridian placed Burgess in Onofrio's house. Onofrio had been operating the house as a rooming house since the previous month. DMH was promptly notified of the placement. Burgess was residing at the house when he set a fire on October 28 that destroyed the house and its contents.

Burgess had become a client of DMH in January, 1983. When Meridian placed Burgess in Onofrio's house, Onofrio was not told that Burgess was a DMH client nor was he told about any emotional or other problems that Burgess might have had except that he "drank a little." On his third or fourth night in the house, Burgess created a disturbance as a result of which Onofrio attempted to evict Burgess. However, Onofrio abandoned that effort when he was advised that he could not evict Burgess without a court order. Onofrio then told Meridian that he did not want Burgess in his house, and Meridian referred Onofrio to Mark Keller, who was a staff clinical social worker at DMH. Onofrio attempted to talk with Keller on the telephone, but Keller never returned his calls. The judge found that Onofrio had never knowingly accepted referrals from DMH because he "was not organized to cope with anything like that."

According to the judge's findings, Keller's responsibilities at DMH included acting as a liaison between DMH and Meridian. He also prepared individual treatment plans for DMH clients. Keller was responsible for Burgess. As early as January, 1983, Keller knew the contents of Burgess's file, which included incidents of destruction of property, violence, and fire setting, although the only documented fire setting incident had occurred in 1975. A 1975 report stated that Burgess was "periodically preoccupied with fire as a means of destroying those with whom he is angry." Keller was informed that, on March 7, 1983, while residing at an emergency shelter for youths, Burgess set off three false fire alarms, and set off another one on March 11. In June, 1983, Keller was told about a physical confrontation between Burgess and an elderly man and in September Keller learned that Burgess had been arrested for breaking and entering.

Because Burgess was unwilling to accept services or treatment offered by DMH, DMH placed Burgess's case on inactive status on October 3, 1983. Keller continued to be informed of Burgess's activities, however. On October 4, Keller learned that Burgess had kicked in a woman's door and punched a police officer, and that Burgess had been admitted to an alcohol detoxification center but refused to stay.

Burgess was referred to Meridian by a DMH supervisor (not Keller). When the referral was made, the supervisor was unaware of Burgess's history, and the referral form did not mention it. Burgess's records were not forwarded to Meridian at any time before the fire. The judge's memorandum of findings and rulings states as follows: "In the past Burgess had signed waivers at Keller's request enabling DMH to provide his records and history to at least three other agencies providing treatment or services. Some time before October 28, 1983, Keller told a representative of Meridian that she could read Burgess's record after a waiver had been signed. No waiver was ever signed for Meridian or Onofrio; no evidence [was] presented that one was ever asked for. Onofrio could have, if informed even generally of a potential problem, insisted that Burgess agree to release his records as a precondition to being allowed to reside in Onofrio's rooming house. Onofrio was kept so completely in the dark about Burgess that he had no reason to expect that Burgess was in any way associated with DMH until after Burgess was placed in his rooming house." (Emphasis in original.)

The judge concluded that, due to a "special relationship" between DMH and Onofrio, DMH owed Onofrio a duty of reasonable care which DMH failed to meet by keeping him "completely in the dark," and that the fire happened as a result of such negligence. He found Meridian negligent as well, rejecting, among other contentions, Meridian's argument that it did not owe Onofrio a duty of reasonable care because Meridian did not have a business relationship with Onofrio.

Having recited the relevant findings, we first direct our attention to DMH's arguments on appeal, and then to Meridian's. At the trial, DMH argued, and argues here, that, by virtue of the so-called "public duty" rule, DMH's employees for whose conduct Onofrio seeks to hold DMH responsible, owed no duty to Onofrio. As a result, DMH argues, Onofrio failed as a matter of law to establish any negligence for which DMH would be liable.

The public duty rule holds that the employment duties of public employees are generally owed only to the public as a whole and not to private individuals. There is an exception to the public duty rule, however, when there is a "special relationship" between the public employee and certain individual members of the public. We have discussed the public duty rule and its exception and the criteria for determining when a special relationship exists in A.L. v. Commonwealth, 402 Mass. 234, 521 N.E.2d 1017 (1988), Appleton v. Hudson, 397 Mass. 812, 494 N.E.2d 10 (1986), Nickerson v. Commonwealth, 397 Mass. 476, 492 N.E.2d 90 (1986), Ribeiro v. Granby, 395 Mass. 608, 481 N.E.2d 466 (1985), Irwin v. Ware, 392 Mass. 745, 467 N.E.2d 1292 (1984), and Dinsky v. Framingham, 386 Mass. 801, 438 N.E.2d 51 (1982). DMH and Onofrio devote considerable attention in their briefs, as did the judge in his memorandum of findings and rulings, to the question whether the public duty rule or, instead, its "special relationship" exception governs this case. We agree with the judge's ultimate conclusion that DMH's employees owed Onofrio a duty of reasonable care. However, as we discuss below, we do not agree that the basis of such a duty is the existence of a special relationship and consequent exception to the public duty rule.

The public duty rule, with or without its special relationship exception, has no application to a case of this kind. The rule applies only to situations, like those present in Irwin v. Ware, supra, and its progeny, in which a plaintiff has been directly harmed by the conduct of a third person and only indirectly by a public employee's dereliction of a duty--a duty imposed on him solely by his contract of employment-- to interrupt or prevent the third person's harmful activity. If, in Irwin, the injuries and deaths had been directly caused by the police officer's negligent driving of a cruiser in the course of his employment, there would have been no call for this court to indulge in...