CSA reverses verdict against Boys Home

A half-million-dollar negligence verdict in favor of a child who was sexually abused by an older resident at the Boys Home Society of Baltimore has been reversed by the Court of Special Appeals.

In an unreported opinion, the court held that the duty owed by the group home to protect the boys living there did not include a duty to provide visual supervision 24 hours a day.

It is not outside the purview of the duty of reasonable care for a staff member to leave two children unsupervised, for less than ten minutes, to respond to a call for assistance by another employee, Judge Mary Ellen Barbera wrote for the court.

The Boys Home staff, the court noted, had received no information from the Baltimore City Department of Social Services that the perpetrator was likely to commit a sexual assault. Further, the home does not accept children who are adjudicated delinquent, have serious emotional problems or have violent tendencies; it does not lock doors or restrain the movement of the residents in any way.

Washington, D.C. attorney Thomas L. McCally, who represented the society, said that while the allegations were unfortunate the court made the right decision. Testimony indicated that a counselor at the home had left the boys alone for no longer than seven or eight minutes, within earshot, he said; there was no evidence of negligence.

Had it not been overturned, it could have led to an expansion of liability, McCally said. This is no different than a parent going upstairs while their child is having a sleepover with another child. Should a parent be held liable, if something happens?

Attorneys Dwayne A. Brown and A. Jai Bonner, who represented the child at trial, could not be reached for comment yesterday but told The Daily Record last year they believed the child had been left much longer than 10 minutes.

The now-12-year-old child, T.H., was removed from his stepfather's care by the department in 2000 after a teacher noticed a bruise on his leg. He was placed at Boys Home, which is housed in a rowhouse on Park Avenue.

According to testimony presented at trial, on Feb. 28, 2001, T.H. was left alone in a second-floor TV room with another resident named J.D. when a counselor, JoAnne Ford, was called to the third floor. Shortly thereafter, the child claimed, J.D. followed him into a bedroom and sodomized him.

In April 2001, T.H. was returned to his stepfather, who filed a negligence action against the home and the department based on the alleged assault. The claim against the department was settled, but in June 2003, a jury concluded that the home had breached a duty of care in its supervision of the boys.

The $1.5 million jury award was later reduced to $515,000 in light of Maryland's cap on noneconomic damages.

In reversing the verdict last week, the appellate court likened Boys Home's relationship to its residents to a school's relationship to its pupils.

Boys Home provided a level of supervision such that the children were in visual range ninety percent of the time and within the hearing of staff at all times, Barbera wrote. Moreover, [T.H.] was left for not less than ten minutes- It therefore was not reasonably foreseeable that, in that brief span of time, J.D. would sexually assault [him].

The unreported opinion is available as

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