Brown v. USA Taekwondo

11 Cal. 5th 204 (2021)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Ps trained in the Olympic sport of taekwondo. They traveled to compete at various events in California and throughout the country with their coach, Marc Gitelman. Gitelman took advantage of these opportunities to sexually abuse the young athletes. This went on for years until the sponsor of these competitions, D, banned Gitelman from coaching. Gitelman was ultimately convicted of multiple felonies for the sexual abuse of the minor athletes he trained. Ps sued Ds alleging that Ds were negligent in failing to protect Ps from Gitelman's abuse. In the wake of numerous such incidents, the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) mandated that national governing bodies adopt a safe sports program to protect athletes from such abuse. Ps alleged that D failed to implement the program in a timely fashion-a fact known to USOC, which placed D on probation as a result. Brown further alleged that D took insufficient steps to protect Gitelman's victims once it was made aware of their allegations: D temporarily suspended Gitelman, but nevertheless permitted him to continue coaching at D competitions for several months before ultimately placing him on its list of banned coaches. USOC and D both demurred to the complaint. They claimed they did not have an affirmative duty to take action to protect Ps from Gitelman's abuse. The trial court sustained both demurrers without leave to amend and entered judgments of dismissal. Ps appealed. The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment dismissing D but affirmed the dismissal as to USOC. The court employed a two-part framework. As a general rule, “‘“one owes no duty to control the conduct of another, nor to warn those endangered by such conduct.”’” But an exception exists for cases in which the defendant has a special relationship with either the dangerous third party or with the victim. If the so-called special relationship exception applies, the policy considerations described in Rowland may weigh against imposing a duty to protect in a given case. The Court of Appeal concluded that Ps had adequately alleged that USAT owed a duty to protect them from Gitelman. The court then went on to consider whether the Rowland factors counseled against imposing a duty on USAT, and determined they did not. The Court of Appeal concluded that USOC had no special relationship and thus no legal duty to protect Ps from Gitelman's abuse. The court explained that USOC's mere ability to regulate D's conduct was insufficient to establish a special relationship that would enable USOC to control Gitelman's conduct, or that would give Ps reason to look to USOC for protection. This appeal resulted.