Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Friday, February 10, 2023

 

Page 1

 

Court of Appeal:

Victim of False Police Report Has No Cause of Action

Opinion Says Woman Who Was Arrested, Prosecuted for Allegedly Attempting to Murder a Dependent Adult Has No Redress Against Caregiver Who Fabricated Incident; Statutory Immunity Is Absolute 

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Immunity from liability under the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act for making a false report of elder abuse applies even where a caregiver fabricated an account of a woman attempting to kill a patient by smothering him with a pillow, resulting in her being arrested and prosecuted for attempting murder and spending a month in jail before being exonerated.

Welfare and Institutions Code §15634(a) provides for no exception, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Helen E. Williams said in an opinion she wrote on assignment to the Sixth District Court of Appeal. The opinion, filed Jan. 11, was certified for publication yesterday.

It affirms a judgment of dismissal entered after Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Thang Nguyen Barrett sustained a demurrer without leave to amend to the complaint filed by caregiver Lynda Valero.

The plaintiff recounted that on Jan. 11, 2018, she had finished her shift in providing in-home care to a dependent adult, Michael Barton, and left the premises; caregiver Sabrina Dellard arrived to take the next shift; Dellard telephoned the police and claimed she witnessed Valero attempting to smother Barton to death; she then coerced Baron into confirming the yarn.

She sued Dellard and her employer, Spread Your Wings, contending the employer knew of Dellard’s propensities and ratified her conduct.

Plaintiff’s Contention

Valero argued in trial court that under §15634(a), “the immunity provided by the Act only extends to reports of ‘a known or suspected instance of abuse.’” She asserted:

“It does not cover a reporter who fabricates an instance of abuse.

“The purpose of the immunity is to encourage those who work with vulnerable populations to report abuse without the fear of being criminally prosecuted or sued for doing so. Indeed, failure to report a known or suspected instance of abuse exposes the mandated reporter to criminal liability….However, neither the statute nor the cases interpreting it extend this statutory immunity to a mandated reporter who fabricates an instance of abuse, since that fabricated abuse was not ‘known or suspected’ by the reporter. There is also no fear on the part of a mandated reporter who concocts a fake instance of abuse that he or she will face criminal liability for failing to make the report.”

Valero maintained that “Dellard’s sole purpose in making up the story about Plaintiff was to have Plaintiff arrested and prosecuted for a serious felony, which was done with malicious intent.”

Appeal Court Decision

Rejecting that reasoning, Williams wrote:

“We conclude that the clear legislative aim of absolute immunity in section 15634(a) for mandated reporters was to serve and facilitate the policy goals of the Act—by increasing the reporting of elder abuse and minimizing the chilling disincentives to that reporting, including the fear of getting sued. We further conclude that the carve-out to immunity for a knowingly false report by a mandated reporter as urged by Valero is not dictated by the statutory language of the Act as a whole and is counter to these legislative policy goals, which are not ours to undo or undermine.”

The opinion also rejects “Valero’s effort to couch Dellard’s alleged post-reporting coercion of Barton as later conduct outside the broad contours of immunity for acts of reporting.”

Williams explained:

“Dellard’s alleged coercion of Barton occurred close in time, was a follow-up to her own report of Valero’s abuse, and concerned the same alleged incident of Valero having tried to smother Barton….In other words, Dellard’s alleged post-reporting conduct involved getting Barton’s—the victim’s—confirmation of the same report. This conduct, by a mandated reporter, is closely connected both in time and in content to Dellard’s own report, for which we have already concluded she has absolute immunity, and it therefore falls within the same immunity protection of section 15634(a).”

Sec. 15634, after declaring immunity for mandated reporters, provides:

“Any other person reporting a known or suspected instance of abuse of an elder or dependent adult shall not incur civil or criminal liability as a result of any report authorized by this article, unless it can be proven that a false report was made and the person knew that the report was false.”

Such proof, Valero urged, should be regarded as sufficient to overcome immunity enjoyed by a mandated reporter. Williams countered:

“The text of section 15634(a) on its face cannot be read to apply or extend the  express limitation for knowingly false reports on immunity for nonmandated  reporters to mandated reporters, for whom this express qualification on  immunity is absent. This textual distinction alone defeats Valero’s plain-meaning argument that we should treat the protections afforded to mandated  and nonmandated reporters alike.”

The case is Valero v. Spread Your Wings, 2023 S.O.S. 537.

 

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