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On February 10, 2004, Adjunct Professor Stephen B. Mercer, '94, argued before the Maryland Court of Appeals in Horridge v. St. Mary's County Department of Social Services, a case that presents important questions about the rights of children and whether people harmed by the government will be afforded a judicial remedy.
Each year the State of Maryland learns of approximately 20,000 children, about half of whom are seven years of age or younger, who are being neglected or physically abused. These vulnerable children depend on the state's protection for their health and safety, and for some of them, timely intervention by the state represents their only chance of survival. The issue in Horridge v. Department of Social Services is whether the state owes a duty of care to reported victims of child abuse and neglect.
Collin Horridge was an 18-month-old child who lived with his mother and her male companion in St. Mary's County, Maryland. From a series of telephone conversations with the mother, Collin's father — who resided in Texas — concluded that Collin was being physically abused at home. Over a three-month period, Mr. Horridge made eight reports of suspected abuse to a state social services agency, which also received a corroborative report from a neighbor of the mother. Even though an agency social worker observed bruising on Collin during a belated
and perfunctory visit to the mother's residence, the agency did not remove Collin from the home, did not have him examined by a physician, did not further monitor his home environment, and did not take any other actions to protect him. When Mr. Horridge made another report of possible abuse to the agency shortly after the home visit, a social worker told him that the case was closed, and ordered him not to call the agency again with reports of abuse. Eight
days later, Collin was beaten to death in the home.
Professor Mercer and his law partner Rene Sandler, '94, also a member of the law school's adjunct faculty, with consultative assistance from Associate Professor William G. McLain, have represented Collin's father in what will be, for Maryland, a precedent-setting wrongful death action against the social services agency and its employees. The principal (and, in Maryland, novel) issues now sub judice in the Court of Appeals are whether Maryland's comprehensive scheme of child protective statutes creates a duty on the part of the state and its officers to protect children identified to them as suspected victims of child abuse, and whether tort liability may be imposed on the state for negligent performance of that duty.
The Horridge litigation follows an earlier case, Doe v. Montgomery County, in which Professors Mercer, Sandler, and McLain obtained a favorable settlement last year for a child and his adoptive parents after a Maryland trial court ruled that a state social services agency had a duty to protect the child, when he was six years old and in the parens patriae legal custody of the state, from severe and sustained physical and emotional abuse by his natural father and the father's lover.
Professor McLain told The Advocate, "Professor Mercer's argument to the Court of Appeals was excellent, but the ultimate result in the Horridge case is hardly certain. Even if the case is lost, I won't consider our work on it to have been a waste of time." Professor McLain noted that in its 1978 decision in In re Primus, the Supreme Court recognized that a lawsuit can be an important method for communicating useful information to the citizenry, which means that the informing function of litigation in a self-governing society can be effectively fulfilled quite independently of the particular outcomes of cases. Professor McLain said, "the Horridge and Doe cases have generated considerable publicity and news media attention in Maryland, and in that way they have already contributed to increased public awareness of the urgent need to improve the performance of government agencies charged with the protection of our most vulnerable children. Whether it's won or lost, the Horridge case was well worth doing for that reason alone."
The Court of Appeals is expected to issue a decision in the case before the beginning of its summer recess in July, 2004.
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