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Hartford Insurance Co. v. Manor Inn of Bethesda Inc.6/9/1994
to whom a tendency to act injuriously is normal and where the actor has charge of a third person who has a peculiar tendency to act injuriously, of which the actor has personal knowledge or experience. Id. at 243, 492 A.2d at 1301. Moreover, we recognized that section 319 is peculiarly applicable to custodial situations. Id. at 244, 492 A.2d at 1302, citing Prosser & Keaton, supra, ยง 56, & n. 16 at 383. It is on the premise that a "special relationship" existed between Griffin and the State that the petitioner's suit is based.
Griffin, the negligent actor, was in the State's custody, having been involuntarily committed upon certification of two doctors that he was a danger to himself or to others. Indeed, the State concedes that a special relationship existed between it and Griffin while he was in its custody as a patient at Springfield State Hospital Center. It concedes, further, that, at that time, it had a general duty to prevent Griffin from causing physical harm to others. Therefore, it would appear that the State fell within the provisions of section 319. But that is not the issue before the Court. What was the State's duty when Griffin eloped? Did the petitioner's insured fall within a class of individuals for whose protection the duty of control existed?
The record is unclear as to the nature or cause of Griffin's dangerousness. That is an important ingredient in determining whether, and, if so, the extent to which, the State owed a duty to Wewer. It does not appear, however, that Griffin's dangerousness involved eloping from State mental institutions and stealing automobiles, which he then crashed into other automobiles. Moreover, it could not be foreseen that Griffin, having eloped, would go to Bethesda, steal a van, and drive it negligently, thus causing an accident. "The risk reasonably to be perceived" Palsgraff, 162 N.E at 100, does not encompass every conceivable possibility and danger. Therefore, viewing the matter prospectively in light of the facts existing at the time of the State's negligent conduct, i.e., its failure to control or detain Griffin, see Henley, 305 Md. at 336, 503 A.2d at 1341, it would be to hold the State liable for unreasonably remote consequences to hold it responsible for Griffin's negligence.
The State also argues that, in any event, even where the custodian fails to control or detain an unreasonably dangerous
person who is in its custody, the custodian owes a duty only to persons within the class to whom the escaped person's dangerous propensity poses a risk and that duty is to warn those members of the class of whom the custodian is aware or should have been aware. See Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal. 3d 425, 551 P.2d 334, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14 (Calif. 1976) (psychotherapists have duty to warn victim, of whom he or she is aware, of the threats that his or her patient has made against him or her); Thompson v. County of Alameda, 27 Cal. 3d 741, 614 P.2d 728, 167 Cal. Rptr. 70 (Calif. 1980) (unless the victim was the foreseeable or readily identifiable target of the threats by a juvenile delinquent to take the life of a child in the neighborhood, county under no duty to warn prior to releasing the juvenile delinquent from custody); Ajirogi v. State, 59 Haw. 515, 583 P.2d 980 (Haw. 1978) (risk of negligent operation of a stolen vehicle was not foreseeable and therefore a duty of care on the part of State mental hospital did not exist); Furr v. Spring Grove State Hospital, 53 Md. App. 474, 454 A.2d 414, cert. denied, 296 Md. 60 (1983).
Furr is the only case
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