Anthia Vu and Hung T. Vu v. The Singer Company, a Corporation, Doing Business as or Also Known as the Singer Education Singer-Career Systems

706 F.2d 1027, 1983 U.S. App. LEXIS 27329
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMay 26, 1983
Docket81-4632
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 706 F.2d 1027 (Anthia Vu and Hung T. Vu v. The Singer Company, a Corporation, Doing Business as or Also Known as the Singer Education Singer-Career Systems) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Anthia Vu and Hung T. Vu v. The Singer Company, a Corporation, Doing Business as or Also Known as the Singer Education Singer-Career Systems, 706 F.2d 1027, 1983 U.S. App. LEXIS 27329 (9th Cir. 1983).

Opinions

[1028]*1028MERRILL, Circuit Judge:

Appellants Anthia and Hung T. Vu have sued appellee The Singer Company for damages allegedly resulting from Singer’s negligence. The action was removed from California state court on the ground of diversity of citizenship, and the question presented on appeal is whether, under California law, Singer, as the operator of a Job Corps Center, owed the Vus a duty of care in the supervising of Job Corps members. The District Court, construing state law as laid down in a series of court decisions, held that Singer owed no duty of care and granted summary judgment in favor of Singer. 538 F.Supp. 26 (N.D.Cal.1981).

The Job Corps was created by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2711 et seq. (1970) (now 29 U.S.C. § 911 et seq. (1976)). Its purpose is to assist disadvantaged young people toward useful employment by providing vocational training, work experience and educational programs. The Office of Economic Opportunity of the Department of Labor (“OEO”) is authorized to enter into contracts with private contractors for the operation of Job Corps Centers where members are provided room and board and the local activities of the corps are carried out. Singer, under contract with OEO, operates the Job Corps Center at San Jose, California.

On December 17, 1978, six male and several female members of the San Jose Corps, after consuming alcohol in a public park near the center, entered the Vu home through an unlocked door. They stole some of the Vus’ belongings and Mrs. Vu was raped. Some of the attackers, prior to this attack, had been known to drink to excess or use drugs and some had been involved in fights away from the center grounds; some had been convicted of theft. The record does not demonstrate, however, that any corps member, prior to this incident, had ever harmed a neighborhood resident or broken into any neighborhood home.

The Vus contend that Singer owed a duty to the residents of the neighborhood to exercise reasonable care in supervising and controlling the corps members. They assert that the corps constitutes a group of high-risk youths with histories of instability, criminal activity and substance abuse, and contend that the neighborhood should have been warned of the presence of such a group.

Appellants contend that a duty of care was imposed on Singer by the statute creating the Job Corps and the administrative regulations implementing it. The District Court stated:

Plaintiffs argue that the enabling legislation sets forth a standard of care to which Singer must adhere. 29 C.F.R. § 97a.97(a) permits each center to adopt its own behavior code which must prohibit the possession of unauthorized goods, such as drugs, and assaultive behavior. Section 97a.97(b) lists various sanctions which may be taken against corpsmem-bers who violate the regulations, ranging from suspension of privileges and restriction to the center to discharge from the program. 29 U.S.C.A. § 932(a) and (b) (Supp. 1981) require the centers to strictly enforce their behavior codes employing disciplinary measures. Plaintiffs assert that Singer violated the statute and the regulations by failing previously to take disciplinary action against the corpsmem-bers who later attacked Mrs. Vu when they were found drunk or in a drugged state at the Center or when they exhibited violent tendencies.

538 F.Supp. at 32 (footnote omitted).

The District Court held that these provisions did not create a duty of care toward the Vus because they were not members of the class for whose protection the regulations were intended. It stated:

A fair reading of the statute demonstrates that Congress intended primarily to protect the program and benefit the corpsmembers by maintaining good community relations. Community pressure to ban a Job Corps Center from the neighborhood due to corpsmember incidents would undermine the program. Although the surrounding community indirectly benefits from this Congressional objective, the statute and regulations do [1029]*1029not create a standard of care owed to the community, the breach of which would result in Singer’s liability.

538 F.Supp. at 33.

We agree with this construction and conclude that no duty of care in controlling or supervising the corps members is owed to the Vus or to the neighborhood by virtue of the relevant statute, regulations or behavior code adopted by Singer. Aside from statute, regulation or code, however, questions remain as to whether a duty of care is imposed upon Singer by California’s common law of torts.

California recognizes that while “under the common law, as a general rule, one person owed no duty to control the conduct of another * * *, nor to warn those endangered by such conduct * * *, the courts have carved out an exception to this rule in cases in which the defendant stands in some special relationship to either the person whose conduct needs to be controlled or in a relationship to the foreseeable victim of that conduct * * Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal.3d 425, 435, 131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 23, 551 P.2d 334, 343 (1976) (citations omitted). See Davidson v. City of Westminster, 32 Cal.3d 197, 203, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252, 255, 649 P.2d 894, 897 (1982).

Here Singer, as operator of a Job Corps Center, does have a special relationship with its corps members. The District Court concluded, however, that California law has provided that this exception to the general rule does not apply under the circumstances of this case for two reasons.

First, the Court concluded that under California law the victim must be foreseeable and specifically identifiable. 538 F.Supp. at 31. This clearly is the law of California with respect to any duty to warn. Thompson v. County of Alameda, 27 Cal.3d 741, 167 Cal.Rptr. 70, 614 P.2d 728 (1980). In Thompson, the California Supreme Court held that “public entities and employees have no affirmative duty to warn of the release of an inmate with a violent history who has made nonspecific threats of harm directed at nonspecific victims.” 27 Cal.3d at 754, 167 Cal.Rptr. at 77, 614 P.2d at 735 (emphasis in original).

California Courts of Appeal have extended this need for foreseeable identification of the victim to cases involving the duty to control as well as the duty to warn. In Hooks v. Southern California Permanente Medical Group, 107 Cal.App.3d 435, 165 Cal. Rptr. 741 (1980), which concerned the duty of a hospital to warn of or to control the conduct of a disturbed employee, the court stated that for such a duty to exist, the defendant must be put “on notice that a specific, rather than a generalized, risk exists. Moreover, one must know that the target of the risk is an identifiable and foreseeable victim.” 107 Cal.App.3d at 444, 165 Cal.Rptr. at 746 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). See also Doyle v. United States, 530 F.Supp. 1278, 1287-88 (C.D.Cal. 1982) (dicta); McDowell v. County of Alameda, 88 Cal.App.3d 321, 325, 151 Cal. Rptr.

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706 F.2d 1027, 1983 U.S. App. LEXIS 27329, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/anthia-vu-and-hung-t-vu-v-the-singer-company-a-corporation-doing-ca9-1983.