No Liability for Negligent Investigation
Without Harmful Placement Of Claimants' Child
The Washington Court of Appeals, Division III, has rejected a claim for compensation for negligent investigation of child abuse because the claimants did not suffer a harmful placement decision concerning their own child. The case, one of many flowing from the Wenatchee "child sex abuse ring" prosecutions of the mid-1990's, is Roberson v. Perez, 119 Wn.App. 928, 83 P.3d 1026 (2004).
Honnah and Jonathan Sims were among the members of an East Wenatchee church who were accused of sex offenses against children who attended the church. They had no children among the alleged victims. When Ms. Sims learned she was under investigation, she sent her child to live with relatives in another state. She was prosecuted and acquitted.
Then the Sims sued Douglas County for negligent investigation of the abuse allegations against them. A jury awarded them $3 million in damages.
The court of appeals reversed the damages award because, it held, the Sims had no standing. The court construed a recent Washington Supreme Court case, M.W. v. Department of Social and Health Services, 149 Wash.2d 589, 70 P.3d 954 (2003), to "establish the notion that the plaintiff's own child must be the subject of a harmful placement decision for the cause of action to lie." Ms. Sims's child was safely out of state during her investigation and so was not the subject of a placement decision. Accordingly, the Sims had no cause of action.
Copyright © 2004 David S. Marshall
