## Facts

- Larry Campbell, an ex-felon with a serious criminal and psychiatric history, served a prison sentence in New York.
- While incarcerated, Campbell was repeatedly evaluated and diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia and assessed as having high criminal potential and a low rehabilitative prognosis.
- Campbell accumulated good-time credit and reached his statutorily mandated conditional release date; his release was required by statute rather than a discretionary parole decision.
- Campbell applied to and was accepted into a special program at a state university college for economically and educationally disadvantaged students; admissions decisions were keyed to program criteria and did not include inquiry into criminal or psychiatric history.
- A prison physician completed a standard student health form indicating no emotional instability; the form functioned as routine health clearance rather than a dangerousness assessment.
- While enrolled and under parole supervision, Campbell committed violent crimes on campus, including the rape and murder of Rhona Eiseman and the murder of another student.
- Eiseman’s estate sued the State for negligence based on (i) releasing Campbell, (ii) failing to transmit his psychiatric history, (iii) admitting/retaining him in the program, and (iv) inadequate supervision.
- The trial court imposed liability to Eiseman’s estate; the intermediate appellate court affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the State could be liable in negligence for releasing Campbell when his conditional release date was mandated by statute.
2. Whether the prison physician owed a duty to the college or its students to disclose Campbell’s full psychiatric and criminal history on a routine student health form.
3. Whether the state college and its special admissions program owed a special duty to protect students from the criminal acts of another adult student by investigating, rejecting, restricting, or closely supervising Campbell.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed and dismissed the estate’s claim.
- The State’s compliance with a statutorily mandated conditional release date did not constitute a breach of a tort duty to the decedent.
- The prison physician’s completion of a routine student health clearance form did not create a duty to protect third parties from the student’s future criminal acts.
- The state college and program did not have a special relationship with the decedent that imposed a duty to control Campbell or protect her from his criminal conduct.
- Policy concerns weighed against imposing an expansive duty that would pressure colleges to exclude or segregate ex-offenders and thereby conflict with rehabilitative educational objectives.

## Legal Principles

- A negligence claim requires breach of a duty owed to the plaintiff; absent a duty, liability cannot be imposed.
- Governmental compliance with mandatory statutory directives (such as non-discretionary conditional release) generally does not create tort liability for later criminal acts of the released person.
- There is generally no duty to control the conduct of third persons or to protect others from them absent a special relationship creating such an obligation.
- Routine medical clearance documentation for school enrollment does not, without more, impose a duty to warn or protect unidentified third parties from a patient’s potential criminality.
- Colleges’ relationships with adult students are typically non-custodial and do not, without a special relationship or statutory mandate, create a duty to protect one student from another’s unforeseeable criminal assault.

## Conclusion

The court held the State was not liable for a student’s death caused by another student who had been mandatorily released from prison and admitted to a state college program, because none of the alleged acts or omissions constituted a breach of a duty owed to the decedent and no special relationship supported third-party protection liability.


Eiseman v. State, 70 N.Y.2d 175 (N.Y. 1987)