## Facts

- Offender Aid and Restoration of Richmond, Inc. (OAR) operated a halfway house for convicted felons under contract with the Virginia Department of Corrections.
- Timothy Wilson Spencer, a convicted felon with an extensive record and institutional evaluations indicating he posed a security risk if not adequately supervised, was placed at OAR’s facility.
- The estate alleged Spencer did not meet OAR’s criteria for residents and that OAR knew or should have known he was likely to cause bodily harm if not controlled.
- The estate alleged security at the facility was poor and supervision lax, including unsecured means of exit and failures to enforce resident restrictions.
- OAR’s contract required reporting to the Department of Corrections when a resident was absent without authorization for two hours or more; the estate alleged OAR did not consistently report such absences.
- On the night of the killing, a head count showed Spencer was absent without authorization.
- While absent, Spencer broke into Debbie Dudley Davis’s home, raped her, and strangled her to death.
- Spencer returned to the facility and signed in late; the estate alleged staff made no meaningful inquiry about his unauthorized absence.
- The administrator of Davis’s estate sued OAR for negligence (and sought compensatory and punitive damages), alleging OAR’s failure to exercise reasonable care in supervising and controlling Spencer proximately caused Davis’s death.
- The trial court sustained OAR’s demurrer and dismissed the action; the administrator appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a halfway-house operator that takes charge of a convicted felon it knows or should know is likely to cause bodily harm if not controlled owes a duty of reasonable care to control him for the protection of members of the public.
2. Whether that duty may extend to an unidentified victim who is nonetheless within a foreseeable class exposed to danger during the period of negligent supervision.
3. Whether the pleaded allegations were sufficient to state negligence and proximate causation and thus survive a demurrer.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held the complaint sufficiently alleged OAR “took charge” of Spencer and therefore owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to control him to prevent harm to others.
- The court held the duty was not limited to specifically identifiable potential victims; it extended to a foreseeable class of persons within the area accessible to Spencer while at large due to negligent control.
- At the demurrer stage, the pleaded facts and reasonable inferences were sufficient to allege foreseeability, negligence, and proximate causation.

## Legal Principles

- Under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 319, one who takes charge of a third person whom it knows or should know is likely to cause bodily harm if not controlled has a duty to exercise reasonable care to control that person to prevent such harm.
- The relevant “special relationship” is between the custodian and the dangerous person; the existence of a duty does not depend on a special relationship between the custodian and the eventual victim.
- Foreseeability defines the scope of the duty; the duty runs to persons within a foreseeable zone of risk created by the custodian’s failure to exercise reasonable control.
- On demurrer, the court tests legal sufficiency of the pleadings, accepting alleged facts and reasonable inferences as true; proof of negligence and causation is for later stages.

## Conclusion

The court held that a private halfway-house operator that took charge of a felon with known risk factors could owe a duty under § 319 to reasonably control him for the protection of foreseeable members of the public, and that allegations of lax supervision and unauthorized absence were sufficient to plead negligence and proximate causation against a demurrer.


Dudley v. Offender Aid & Restoration of Richmond, Inc., 241 Va. 270, 401 S.E.2d 878 (Va. 1991)