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Romero v. Superior Court of San Diego County6/8/2001
ged had sexually assaulted her in his home over a period of many years beginning when she was 10 years of age. The plaintiff also brought a claim for negligent supervision against the man's wife on the theory that she caused the plaintiff to suffer damages by negligently supervising her while she was in the defendants' home. (Id. at p. 155.) The wife sought a writ of mandate directing the trial court to set aside an order overruling her demurrer. (Id. at pp. 154-155.) After explaining the California "no duty to aid" rule (discussed, supra), the Court of Appeal recognized that the defendant wife had assumed a special relationship with the plaintiff when she and her husband invited the plaintiff into their home, but held that the trial court should have sustained the defendant wife's demurrer without leave to amend on the ground the plaintiff had failed to state sufficient facts from which the trier of fact could infer that the wife "must have known that her husband was engaging in, or wished to engage in, acts of sexual misconduct with a minor." (Id. at p. 158, original italics.) The Chaney court stated that "public policy requires that where a child is sexually assaulted in the defendant wife's home by her husband, the wife's duty of reasonable care to the injured child depends on whether the husband's behavior was reasonably foreseeable." (Id. at p. 157.) The court also explained that, " ithout knowledge of her husband's deviant propensities, a wife will not be able to foresee that he poses a danger and thus will not have a duty to take measures to prevent the assault." (Ibid., italics added.)
The Chaney court then adopted a "must have known" test (hereafter the Chaney duty rule) for determining whether the defendant wife owed a duty of care to the plaintiff after inviting her into the home when she was a child. Specifically, the Court of Appeal in Chaney held that, " lthough a wife's knowledge may be proven by circumstantial evidence, such inference must reflect the wife's actual knowledge and not merely constructive knowledge or notice. ' ctual knowledge can be inferred from the circumstances only if, in the light of the evidence, such inference is not based on speculation or conjecture. Only where the circumstances are such that the defendant "must have known" and not "should have known" will an inference of actual knowledge be permitted.' [Citation.]" (Chaney, supra, 39 Cal.App.4th at p. 157, italics added.) In other words, under the Chaney duty rule a defendant spouse who assumed a special relationship with a minor by inviting the minor into his or her home will be deemed to have owed no duty of care to take reasonable measures to protect the minor against a sexual assault in the home by the other spouse unless the evidence and surrounding circumstances establish that the defendant had actual knowledge (i.e., must have known) of the offending spouse's assaultive propensities.
The Court of Appeal in Chaney next addressed the question of what facts the plaintiff was required to allege to show that the defendant wife had actual knowledge that her husband harbored deviant propensities that could cause him to sexually molest a child. (Chaney, supra, 39 Cal.App.4th at p. 157.) Noting that Pamela L. (supra, 112 Cal.App.3d 206) was "instructive," the Chaney court explained that although the plaintiffs in Pamela L. "did not allege that the defendant wife actually knew her husband was engaging in acts of molestation, they alleged facts (knowledge of prior instances of sexual molestation on the part of the husband) which demonstrated that she knew about her husband's deviant propensities." (Chaney, supra, 39 Cal.App.4th at p. 158, citing Pamela L., supra, 112 Cal.App.3d. at pp. 208-209.)
We
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