LogFAQs > #957323840

I realise that I haven't made the best case for the excerpt I published, where the plaintiff tried to sue under the banner of property damage.

The reason why she tried to sue under property damage was due to a 1989 ruling that established the original precedent of government bodies having no duty to protect people, in which a 4 year old boy was beaten to the point of disability by his father, before becoming comatose and subsequently dying.

Notably, the organisation took some action, but they didn't remove the child from the custody of his abusive father. The resulting court case led to the predecent that the state isn't required to protect the life, liberty or property against invasion by outside actors:

In the 1989 landmark case of DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the failure by government workers to protect someone (even 4-year-old Joshua DeShaney) from physical violence or harm from another person (his father) did not breach any substantive constitutional duty. In this case, Joshuas mother sued the Winnebago County Department of Social Services, alleging it deprived Joshua of his "liberty interest in bodily integrity, in violation of his rights under the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, by failing to intervene to protect him against his father's violence.

While the Department took various steps to protect Joshua after receiving numerous complaints of the abuse, the Department took no actions to remove Joshua from his father's custody. Joshua became comatose and extremely r------- due to traumatic head injuries inflicted by his father who physically beat him over a long period of time.

Nevertheless, the Court found that the government had no affirmative duty to protect any person, even a child, from harm by another person. Nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors," stated Chief Justice Rehnquist for the majority, "even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government itself may not deprive the individual" without due process of the law."

Which was subsequently upheld in the 2005 case against the police, applying the same standards to them as well as government bodies such as Social Services.

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But I don't have to make this mistake, and I don't have to stay this way.
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