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Doe Parents No. 1 v. State11/27/2002
he girls. Nor can it be gainsaid that Schlosser acted unreasonably in failing promptly to notify the girls' respective parents regarding their disclosures to him, insofar as he advanced no reason for failing to do so.
Accordingly, we affirm the circuit court's findings that the DOE breached the duty that it owed to the plaintiffs by (1) reinstating Norton without conducting a reasonable investigation to ascertain whether he had molested T.Y. as she had alleged, (2) failing to supervise Norton or restrict his contact with children after Schlosser became aware, or should have become aware, that Norton had resumed the very conduct that gave rise to T.Y.'s prior accusation, (3) Schlosser's personally interviewing Melony and Nicole and inducing them to disclose to him whether Norton had molested them, notwithstanding his awareness that he lacked the requisite training to minimize the trauma associated with such disclosures, and (4) Schlosser's failure to notify the girls' parents of their disclosures to him.
c. Legal causation
We have held that an "actor's negligent conduct is a legal cause of harm to another if (a) his or her conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about the harm, and (b) there is no rule of law relieving the actor from liability because of the manner in which his or her negligence has resulted in the harm." Talyor-Rice, 91 Hawaii at 74, 979 P.2d at 1100 (citations and brackets omitted). The first prong of the test for the presence of legal causation "contemplates a factual determination that the negligence of the defendant was more likely than not a substantial factor in bringing about the result complained of." Id. at 74-75, 979 P.2d at 1100-01 (citations omitted). In this regard, "a defendant's negligence need not have been the whole cause or the only factor in bringing about the harm. It s enough that his or her negligence was a substantial factor in causing plaintiff's injuries." Id. at 74, 979 P.2d at 1100 (citations, brackets, and emphases omitted). The second prong "contemplates . . . whether there are policy concerns or rules of law that would prevent imposition of liability on the negligent party although his [or her] negligence was clearly a cause of the resultant injury ." Id. at 75, 979 P.2d at 1101 (citation omitted).
For present purposes, it is significant that the circuit court found that (1) the DOE's failures (a) to conduct a reasonably thorough administrative investigation in connection with T.Y.'s allegations and (b) reasonably to supervise Norton after it reinstated him, (2) Schlosser's failure to conduct proper interviews of Melony and Nicole, and (3) Schlosser's failure to inform the girls' respective parents of what they had reported to him were all substantial factors in causing the plaintiffs' injuries.
Although the DOE's argument with respect to the first prong of the test for legal causation is less than clear, it appears that it is contending that "any conclusion that the failure to conduct a different type of investigation was a legal cause of [the plaintiffs'] damages is speculative at best." The DOE defends the actions of its employees, generally observing that their assessments of Norton's and T.Y.'s credibility were not "arbitrary, capricious, or clearly erroneous" such that, presumably, the circuit court should not have determined otherwise. The DOE also appears to believe that the circuit court should not have determined that the negligent conduct of its employees legally caused forty-nine percent of the plaintiffs' damages because the plaintiffs' damages included trauma directly caused by the ultimately unsuccessful criminal proceedings against Norton. Correlatively, the DOE contends that the plaintiff
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