## Facts

- A mother brought her four-year-old daughter, T.M., to therapy at The Children’s Center, where Nancy Baird treated T.M.
- The father, Thomas E. Mower, was not Baird’s patient.
- Mower alleged Baird used suggestive and improper therapeutic techniques contrary to accepted protocols.
- Mower alleged the treatment caused T.M. to develop false memories and make false allegations that Mower sexually abused her.
- Mower claimed resulting harms including reputational injury, severe emotional distress, and impairment of his relationship with T.M.
- Mower sued Baird and The Children’s Center for professional negligence and related theories, including vicarious liability.
- The district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6), concluding therapists owe no duty to potential alleged abusers when treating an alleged victim.
- Mower appealed; at the pleading stage, all well-pleaded allegations were assumed true.

## Issues

1. Whether a therapist treating a minor child owes a duty of reasonable care to a nonpatient parent to avoid giving rise to false memories or false allegations of sexual abuse by that parent.
2. If so, whether the duty extends to protect the nonpatient parent from severe emotional distress (supporting negligent infliction of emotional distress) arising from such conduct.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court reversed in part and affirmed in part.
- The court held a therapist owes a duty to a nonpatient parent, but only for an affirmative act of recklessly giving rise to false memories or false allegations of sexual abuse by that parent.
- The court held a similar, limited duty exists regarding severe emotional distress when the therapist recklessly creates such false memories or allegations.
- The court reinstated claims to the extent the complaint could be read to allege reckless conduct within the limited duties recognized.
- The court affirmed dismissal to the extent the complaint alleged only non-reckless negligence outside the limited duty.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Duty analysis considers the parties’ relationship, foreseeability of harm, and public policy.
- A mental-health professional’s duty may extend beyond the patient to a nonpatient parent in limited circumstances where harm is foreseeable and policy supports a constrained obligation.
- The recognized duty is narrowly limited to affirmative reckless conduct that produces false memories or false allegations of child sexual abuse against the nonpatient parent.
- Ordinary negligence in treatment decisions, without recklessness, does not fall within the duty recognized for claims by the nonpatient parent.
- A claim framed as negligent infliction of emotional distress may proceed when severe emotional distress is a foreseeable result of the same reckless affirmative conduct that creates false allegations.

## Conclusion

The court allowed a nonpatient parent to pursue claims against a child’s therapist only where the therapist’s affirmative reckless acts allegedly caused false abuse memories or allegations and foreseeably inflicted severe emotional distress, while rejecting broader liability based on mere negligence.


Mower v. Baird, 2018 UT 29, 422 P.3d 837 (Utah 2018)