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
- 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.
- 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.