## Facts

- Plaintiffs were teenage taekwondo athletes who trained and competed under Marc Gitelman, a coach certified through USA Taekwondo (USAT).
- To compete in USAT events, athletes had to be USAT members and train under a USAT coach.
- During trainings and competitions connected to taekwondo participation, Gitelman sexually abused plaintiffs and was later criminally convicted.
- Plaintiffs alleged USAT and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) knew or should have known of the risk of sexual abuse by coaches and negligently failed to implement and enforce adequate protective policies.
- USOC oversaw national governing bodies for Olympic sports, including USAT, primarily through organizational certification and oversight of governing bodies rather than direct control of individual coaches or athletes.

## Issues

1. What framework governs whether a defendant owes an affirmative duty to protect a plaintiff from harm caused by a third party’s misconduct.
2. Under that framework, whether plaintiffs adequately alleged that USOC owed an affirmative duty to protect them from Gitelman’s sexual abuse.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of the negligence claim against USOC at the demurrer stage.
- The court held that determining an affirmative duty to protect from third-party misconduct requires a two-step inquiry:
  - First, decide whether a special relationship or other recognized duty-creating circumstance exists.
  - Second, if such a basis exists, consider whether policy factors warrant limiting the duty.
- Plaintiffs did not plead facts showing a special relationship between USOC and plaintiffs or between USOC and Gitelman, or other circumstances creating an affirmative protective duty.
- Because step one was not satisfied as to USOC, the court did not reach policy balancing to limit any duty.
- The court left undisturbed the ruling allowing claims against USAT to proceed on remand (the review focused on USOC and the duty framework).

## Legal Principles

- Ordinary negligence principles impose a general duty of reasonable care in one’s own conduct, but an affirmative duty to protect against third-party misconduct arises only in limited, recognized circumstances.
- Courts evaluate asserted affirmative duties to protect through a two-step approach:
  - Step one: identify a special relationship between defendant and plaintiff, or defendant and the third party, or another recognized basis for an affirmative duty (such as assumed duty or a statute).
  - Step two: only after such a duty basis exists, consider policy factors to determine whether and how to limit the duty.
- Policy factors do not independently create an affirmative duty to protect in the absence of a special relationship or comparable duty-creating circumstance.
- Indirect, attenuated oversight of an intermediary organization, without sufficient direct control over the victim or perpetrator, generally does not establish the type of relationship required to impose an affirmative duty to protect from third-party criminal acts.

## Conclusion

The court clarified that affirmative duties to protect from third-party misconduct require a recognized duty-creating relationship or circumstance before any policy-based limitation analysis applies, and it held that USOC’s indirect oversight role was insufficient to impose a duty to protect the athlete plaintiffs from their coach’s sexual abuse.


Brown v. USA Taekwondo, 11 Cal. 5th 204, 483 P.3d 159 (Cal. 2021)