Fried v. Archer

Fifteen year old Tiffany Fouts, daughter of Sarah Fried, appellant, paid far too high a price for drinking alcohol. At a residence she was visiting for the first time, Tiffany got drunk *237 in the company of her girlfriend and four underage boys she had just met. Tiffany became ill and semi-conscious. Some of the guests sexually assaulted Tiffany, then dragged her outside in the freezing rain. In an effort to avoid legal trouble but summon a rescuer, three of them called the Harford County Sheriffs Department. They reported to police communications officer Kim Archer, appellee, that there was a girl who had been “over here drinking” laying in the woods to the rear of “1436” Harford Square, “K Court.” Archer replied that she would “send someone out.”

Unfortunately, in order to prevent police officers from coming to their residence at 1443 Charleston Drive, K Court, the assailants hastily invented a street number, and insisted on anonymity. Unfortunately, there is no 1436 K Court, because K Court only has odd-numbered addresses. Unfortunately, the dispatcher directed the responding police officers to “1436 ----J Court,” an address that does exist. Unfortunately, despite searching behind that address and the entire row of townhomes along J Court, the officers did not find Tiffany, and discontinued their search. Unfortunately, no search was conducted in the woods behind the K Court townhomes, where Tiffany lay until she was found the next day, dead from hypothermia.

In this appeal, we address an issue of first impression in Maryland — the negligence liability of a police dispatcher. We conclude that the tort duty owed by police dispatchers must be determined by applying the same “special duty rule” that governs the tort liability of other public and private defendants. Applying that rule, we hold that Archer did not have a special duty to rescue Tiffany, because Tiffany, who was unconscious, did not specifically rely on Archer’s promise to “send someone out,” and because the assailants who called on her behalf did not justifiably rely on that promise. Thus, Archer did not have a “special relationship” with Tiffany, or a special duty to aid, protect, or rescue Tiffany. Because appellant cannot establish that Archer had a private duty to Tiffany, the trial court properly dismissed appellant’s negligence claims against Archer. For substantially similar reasons, we *238 also affirm the dismissal of appellant’s negligent training claims against James Terrell, appellee, who is chief of Harford County’s Emergency Management and Operations Division.

FACTS AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

We review the allegations in the complaint, and accept them as true for purposes of reviewing this dismissal. See Valentine v. On Target, Inc., 353 Md. 544, 548, 727 A.2d 947 (1999). On November 11, 1995, Tiffany Fouts made plans to spend the night with her school friend, Melanie M. Early in the evening, the two girls went to 1443 Charleston Drive, K Court, located in the Harford Square townhome development in Edgewood. This was the home of Melanie’s acquaintance, Eric F., and his mother, Ms. F. Tiffany, Melanie, and Eric were joined by three of Eric’s friends, Donte, Ricky, and Louis. Tiffany had never met Eric or any of his friends.

The complaint alleges that Ms. F. and Louis supplied alcohol to the minors, who “partied” in the basement of Ms. F.’s home. Within an hour of her arrival, Tiffany began to vomit and lapsed into semi-consciousness. Some of the guests then assaulted and abused Tiffany. They “engaged in nonconsen-sual sexual acts with [her], heavy objects were dropped upon her head and certain guests urinated upon her as well.”

To conceal Tiffany’s condition, Eric F. and Ricky dragged her out a back door. They left Tiffany, wearing only a tee shirt, skirt, socks, and shoes, in an area of woods located directly behind the townhome. The weather was cold and rainy, and a snowy winter storm had been forecast.

Melanie and Louis then left the Fox residence. Ricky and Donte were staying the night with Eric. Aware that Tiffany was in danger from exposure, Donte, in the presence of Eric and Ricky, called the Harford County Sheriffs Department (“HCSO”). His report to Kim Archer, the police communications officer who answered the phone, was as follows:

HCSO DISPATCHER [ARCHER]: Harford County Sheriffs Office, PCO Archer.

CALLER: Hello.

*239 HCSO DISPATCHER: Yes.

CALLER: Um, there’s a girl in the back of the woods like.

HCSO DISPACTHER: Back of what woods.

CALLER: Um, Harford Square.

HCSO DISPATCHER: Okay. What’s the exact address?

CALLER: There ain’t no exact address where she’s at.

HCSO DISPATCHER: Okay. What’s the residence where she is? Can you give me the residence in front of where she’s to the rear of?

CALLER: What’s the address to those people over there? Cause she’s further that way. 1436? (Inaudible.) 1436. HCSO DISPATCHER: Okay. Harford Square?

CALLER: Yes, K Court.

HCSO DISPATCHER: Okay. And what’s she doing, sir?

CALLER: Just laying there.

HCSO DISPATCHER: Okay. She’s just laying to the rear of the house?

CALLER: Yes, she was. She was over a — . She was over here drinking and she was laying there.

HCSO DISPATCHER: Okay. Is she a white female? Black female?

CALLER: Yeah.

HCSO DISPATCHER: Which one?

CALLER: White female.

HSCO DISPATCHER: Okay. White female. Okay. And your last name, sir?

CALLER: I’d just say anonymous.

HCSO DISPATCHER: Okay. We’ll send someone out.

CALLER: Thanks.

The complaint acknowledged that the boys, “[ijntending for the emergency personnel to locate Tiffany Fouts, but attempting to avoid potential problems related to underaged drinking, ... provided ... a fictitious street address of T436’,” but asserted that they “provided a factually accurate street identification indicating [that Tiffany was] ‘in the back of the woods’ *240 on ‘K Court’....” It asserted that Archer failed “to obtain further substantive information ... which would have been instrumental in successfully locating and rescuing Tiffany Fouts,” and “misinformed the [HCSO] and/or Deputy Sheriff Kevin L. Thomas as to the proper location of the semiconscious girl.... ” The dispatcher directed responding officers to investigate “the well-being of a number 2 female ... lying to the rear of’ “1436 Harford Square Drive.... J — John— Court,” instead of “K Court.”

These mistakes, appellant asserted, had fatal consequences. “The area behind J Court is separate and apart from K Court and located in a different section of the Harford Square townhome development.” Appellant alleged that, unlike the area behind K Court, the area behind J Court “had no ... forested area.” Officer Thomas walked the area behind the J Court townhomes, including number 1436, but did not find Tiffany. “[N]o further effort of any nature was made to review or request further information that had been provided to the dispatch office notwithstanding ... the pouring rain and approaching winter storm____” In the early morning hours of November 12, Tiffany Fouts froze to death.

Appellant filed a wrongful death and survival action against Ms. F., PCO Archer, “unidentified dispatch or emergency service employees of Harford County Emergency Operations Division” (the “Doe defendants”), Officer Thomas, Chief Terrell, the HCSO, and the State. 1 She alleged that “Archer [negligently] breached her duty of care by failing to make basic inquiries of Donte W.” by “reporting that Tiffany ... was behind ‘J’ Court when in fact she was reported to be and was in fact behind ‘K’ Court,” and by “failing to report that Tiffany ... was behind townhomes near a forested area, ... [a] crucial piece of initial information [that] would have assisted in the determination that an improper address had been provided by Archer [and prompted] ---- [a] review of the recorded telephone call----” The negligence claims against *241 Terrell were based on allegations of improper procedures and training for emergency dispatchers.

After appellant voluntarily dismissed Ms. F., all of the governmental defendants moved to dismiss the negligence claims against them. In support, they offered transcripts from the juvenile criminal proceedings against Eric F., which included a transcript of Donte’s call to Archer.

Donte testified that he knew Tiffany “was cold,” and suggested calling the police on her behalf. That suggestion and other suggestions to call for an ambulance and to call 911 were overruled, in favor of calling the HCSO directly. The three looked up HCSO’s number in a local telephone directory, and Donte placed the call. Eric supplied him with the house number “1486.” Donte requested anonymity because he “didn’t ... want them to come to the house.” After the call, they “hit the lights .... [so] they won’t come to the house.” They briefly peeked out the window blinds, looking “for flashlights,” but then returned to the basement.

Eric testified that he vetoed Donte’s suggestion to call 911, because he “knew it would be a whole bunch of like police cars and stuff, and I didn’t want them coming to the house.” He admitted that for the same reasons, he invented a street address: “I didn’t want to give [Donte] the address to this house----so I thought of an address I thought it was close to ... where she was at.” After calling HCSO, Eric went back outside to check on Tiffany only “[o]nce.” Although he and Ricky Washington planned to go outside a second time, and to bring Tiffany “back into the house and let her stay in the basement,” his mother stopped them as they were going out the front door. She told Ricky he could go out if he wished, but he did not. Eric admitted that he never saw the police come.

Deputy Thomas testified that he was familiar with the Harford Square townhomes, from his frequent patrols of that neighborhood. Each of the courts off the main roads are designated by a letter of the alphabet. He explained that there are no even-numbered townhomes located on K Court, *242 and no odd-numbered townhomes located on J Court. The courts are located off of main drives known as “Harford Square Drive,” and “Charleston Drive.” At 9:55 p.m. on November 11,1995, he received a call “to go to an address and check the rear of the residence for a female they believed was intoxicated, laying out in the weather.... ” The HCSO dispatcher told him to check “to the rear of 1486 Harford Square Drive.... It will be J — John—Court. Cross-street is Charlestown [sic].” There was no mention of woods in the dispatch.

When Thomas got to 1436 J Court, “it was raining pretty hard” and “[v]ery cold.” Thomas “[w]alked to the rear of the residence,” but “[s]aw nobody.” He “[r]econtacted [the] dispatcher to ask if somebody could come point her out to [him] from the complainant.” When the dispatcher replied that there was no reconnect information, Thomas “walked that whole line of houses on that side of the court and then back around to the front.” Behind the J Court townhomes, there was a footpath and “a community of trees in between the back of J Court and the back of the other courts ... behind it, along [a] footpath.” Thomas “[s]aw nobody,” only “regular backyard kinds of stuff.” At that point, he encountered a Maryland State trooper who had also responded to the call, but had searched behind J1 Court, another separate court next to J Court. Finding no one, Thomas radioed the dispatcher that the call was an “unfounded complaint.”

In response to the motions to dismiss, appellant voluntarily dismissed Officer Thomas. On November 16, 1999, the court issued a memorandum opinion and order dismissing Archer, Terrell, the Doe defendants, and the State. The court concluded that Terrell had public official immunity from negligence claims, but that Archer did not. Nevertheless, the court held that neither Archer nor Terrell could have been negligent “because there was no existing duty [to] ... the victim,” who “never knew of the conversation Ms. Archer had with the anonymous caller,” and therefore, “could [not] have relied upon Ms. Archer’s protection.... ”

*243 Appellant filed this appeal, challenging only the dismissal of her claims against Archer and Terrell.

DISCUSSION

This suit arising out of Tiffany Fouts’ tragic death presents a question of first impression in Maryland. We must decide whether police dispatchers who receive a call for assistance are presumed, as a matter of law, to have a special duty to aid or rescue a crime victim from the peril in which her assailants placed her. In doing so, we consider standards governing the negligence liability of police dispatchers and other similarly situated emergency dispatchers.

Appellant challenges the trial court’s conclusion that appel-lees cannot be held liable for negligence because they did not owe a private or “special” duty to Tiffany. Citing the unique nature of an emergency services dispatcher’s job, appellant argues that “Archer and Terrell did owe a legal duty of care to [Tiffany] based on the fact that [Tiffany] was an individual and a member of the class of persons who are the subjects of 911 or emergency calls, ... and injury to her from failing to give correct location information was readily foreseeable.”

We do not agree that police dispatchers owe a private duty of care to all persons on whose behalf a request for assistance has been made. Instead, we conclude that the negligence liability of a police dispatcher must be decided on a case-by-case basis, using the “special duty rule” to determine whether the dispatcher had a “special relationship” with the victim that justifies the imposition of a private duty of care toward that victim. In this case, we conclude that the police dispatcher did not have a special duty to the crime victim on whose behalf a request for emergency services was made, because the victim did not detrimentally rely on the dispatcher’s promise to send a police officer, and because, as a matter of law, any reliance on that promise by the potential rescuers who placed the call was not justified. We shall affirm the dismissal of appellant’s claims against appellees. In light of *244 that holding, we will not review the trial court’s holdings regarding appellees’ immunity claims. 2

I.

Special Duty To Rescue

The question of whether a tort duty is owed is a question of law for the court. See Bobo v. State, 346 Md. 706, 716, 697 A.2d 1371 (1997); see also Mullin v. City of South Bend, 639 N.E.2d 278, 283 (Ind.1994) (whether a police dispatcher has a special duty to a person in need of emergency services is a question of law for the court). “A tort duty is ‘an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that the plaintiff is entitled to protection.’ ” Eisel v. Bd. of Educ. of Montgomery County, 324 Md. 376, 385-86, 597 A.2d 447 (1991) (citations omitted).

As a general rule, there is no affirmative legal duty to rescue someone in peril. 3 “ ‘The fact that the actor realizes or should realize that action on his part is necessary for another’s aid or protection does not of itself impose upon him *245 a duty to take such action.’ ” Lamb v. Hopkins, 303 Md. 236, 242, 492 A.2d 1297 (1985) (quoting Restatement of Torts (Second) § 314).

“The main rationale behind the no duty to rescue rule is that the defendant did not engage in any action that gave rise to the plaintiffs harm.” J. Groninger, No Duty to Rescue: Can Americans Really Leave a Victim Lying in the Street? What Is Left of the American Rule, and Will It Survive Unabated?, 26 Pepp. L.Rev. 357, 358 (1999). Underlying the rule is a distinction between “harmful conduct” and “failure to confer a benefit.” 4 See generally L. Murphy, Beneficence, Law, and Liberty: The Case of Required Rescue, 89 Geo. L.J. 605, 628 (2001). “A fails to benefit B when A could, but does not, perform an action that would make B better off. On this ordinary understanding, a failure to rescue is a failure to benefit.”. Id.

In contrast, “when the defendant does bring about the cause or the event which is harming the plaintiff, the *246 defendant does have a duty to rescue.” Groninger, supra, 26 Pepp. L.Rev. at 374 n. 225. Moreover, even “[i]f there is no duty to come to the assistance of a person in difficulty or peril, ... there is at least a duty to avoid affirmative acts making his situation worse.” Furr v. Spring Grove State Hosp., 53 Md.App. 474, 487, 454 A.2d 414 (1983). Thus, defendants whose wrongful conduct either creates or increases the victim’s peril do owe a private duty of care to their victim.

Maryland, like most other jurisdictions, recognizes a common law exception to the “no duty to rescue” rule when there is a special relationship between the potential rescuer and the endangered person. See Ashburn v. Anne Arundel County, 306 Md. 617, 628, 510 A.2d 1078 (1986); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A (“Restatement ”). The rationale for the exception is that special duties “arise out of special relations between the parties, which create a special responsibility, and take the case out of the general rule.” Restatement § 314A cmt. b. It is the victim’s justifiable reliance on an expectation of assistance that creates the “special relationship” between the victim and the defendant, and in turn, justifies the imposition of a special duty to aid, protect, or rescue that victim.

Providing the essential causative link between the “special duty” assumed by the municipality and the alleged injury, the “justifiable reliance” requirement goes to the very heart of the special relationship exception, which is predicated in large measure on “the unfairness that the courts have perceived in precluding recovery when a [defendant’s] voluntary undertaking has lulled the injured party into a false sense of security and has thereby induced [her] either to relax [her] own vigilance or to forego other available avenues of protection.”

Grieshaber v. City of Albany, 279 A.D.2d 232, 720 N.Y.S.2d 214, 217 (2001) (citations omitted); see also Restatement § 314A cmt. b (“The law appears ... to be working slowly toward a recognition of the duty to aid or protect in any relation of dependence or of mutual dependence”).

*247 Examples of special relationships that, as a matter of law, create a special duty to aid, protect, or rescue include relationships between “carrier and passenger, innkeeper and guest, invitor and business visitor, school and pupil, employer and employee, [and] landlord and tenant....” Valentine, 353 Md. at 553, 727 A.2d 947 (quoting W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 30, at 356 (5th ed.1984)). The imposition of such a “special duty per se ” traditionally has been limited to these relationships, with the caveat that “there may ... be other relations which impose a similar duty.” Restatement § 314A caveat.

In most other cases, whether there is a special relationship creating a private duty in tort is determined on a case-by-case basis. See id. at cmt. b. The case-by-case approach permits tort recovery in meritorious cases while preserving the general rule that there is no duty to rescue. See City of Rome v. Jordan, 263 Ga. 26, 426 S.E.2d 861, 863 (1993).

In cases involving tort claims against public servants, there are additional considerations affecting our determination of whether, in addition to the public duty owed to the community at large, a public defendant also owes a private duty to an individual plaintiff. “[A]mong the variables to be considered in determining whether a [private] tort duty should be recognized are ... ‘the policy of preventing future harm, [and] the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach.... ’ ” Village of Cross Keys, Inc. v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 315 Md. 741, 752, 556 A.2d 1126 (1989) (quoting Tarasoff v. Regents of Univ. of Calif., 17 Cal.3d 425, 131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 551 P.2d 334, 342 (1976)). Courts have been reluctant to impose a special duty per se upon an entire class of public employees. In Warren v. Dist. of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C.1981), the District of Columbia courts explained why imposing a special duty per se is not always necessary to ensure that the employee is held “accountable” for mistakes.

*248 A duty owed to the public ... is no less enforceable because it is owed to “everybody.” Public officials at all levels remain accountable to the public and the public maintains elaborate mechanisms to enforce its rights — both formally in the courts and less formally through internal disciplinary proceedings____

The absence of a duty specifically enforceable by individual members of the community is not peculiar to public police services. Our representative form of government is replete with duties owed to everyone in their capacity as citizens but not enforceable by anyone in his capacity as an individual. Through its representatives, the public creates community service; through its representatives, the public establishes the standards which it demands of its employees in carrying out those services and through its representatives, the public can most effectively enforce adherence to those standards of competence. As members of the general public, individuals forego any direct control over the conduct of public employees in the same manner that such individuals avoid any direct responsibility for compensating public employees.

Id. at 8 (adopting Superior Court’s opinion).

In addition, the Court in Warren contrasted the modest benefits likely to result from imposing a private tort law duty on public servants with the potentially enormous public costs of doing so.

Plaintiffs in this action would have the Court and a jury of twelve ... judg[e] the adequacy of a public employee’s performance in office. Plaintiffs proposition would lead to results ... aptly described as “staggering.” ... [Sjhould a Court and jury ... sift through clues known to the police in order to determine whether a criminal could reasonably have been apprehended before committing a second crime? Should a Court also be empowered to evaluate, in the context of a tort action, the handling of a major fire and determine whether the hoses were properly placed and the firemen correctly allocated? Might a Court also properly *249 entertain a tort claim ... over a postman’s failure to deliver promptly an important piece of mail?

Establishment by the Court of a new, privately enforceable duty to use reasonable diligence in the performance of public functions would not likely improve services rendered to the public. The creation of direct, personal accountability between each government employee and every member of the community would effectively bring the business of government to a speedy halt, “would dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible, in the unflinching discharge of their duties,” and dispatch a new generation of litigants to the courthouse over grievances real and imagined. An enormous amount of public time and money would be consumed in litigation of private claims rather than in bettering the inadequate service which draws the complaints. Unable to pass the risk of litigation cost on to their “clients,” prudent public employees would choose to leave public service.

Id. at 8-9. See also White v. Beasley, 453 Mich. 308, 552 N.W.2d 1, 11 (1996) (public duty doctrine serves useful purpose of protecting government from “unreasonable interference with policy decisions”).

In Maryland, we use the case-by-case approach to determine whether a police officer had a special duty to protect, aid, or rescue an individual plaintiff. In Ashburn v. Anne Arundel County, 306 Md. 617, 510 A.2d 1078 (1986), the Court of Appeals considered the tort duty of police officers called upon to protect citizens endangered by the criminal conduct of a third party. In that case, a police officer found a drunk man sitting in a truck in a parking lot, and told him not to drive; he did not conduct a field sobriety test or arrest him. As soon as the officer left, the man drove away. Within a short distance, he hit Ashbum, a pedestrian, resulting in the loss of Ashburn’s leg. See id. at 620, 510 A.2d 1078. The trial court dismissed Ashbum’s negligence complaint, on the grounds that (1) the officer had public official immunity from negligence liability, and (2) alternatively, the officer had no special *250 duty to protect Ashbum from the consequences of the driver’s criminal conduct. See id.

After concluding that the officer had qualified public official immunity from liability for non-malicious acts, the Court held that dismissal of the negligence claim against the officer also was appropriate because the officer had no tort duty to Ashburn.

Even if we were to assume that [the officer was statutorily required to stop or detain the driver], i.e., that the statute made [the officer’s] actions ministerial, and thus nondiscre-tionary, appellant’s cause would still fail because he did not establish that [the officer] owed him a duty in tort.

Id. at 626, 510 A.2d 1078.

The Ashbum Court concluded that the duty usually owed by a police officer is a duty to the public at large, rather than a private duty to a single individual.

[W]e recognize the general rule, as do most courts, that absent a “special relationship” between police and victim, liability for failure to protect an individual citizen against injury caused by another citizen does not lie against police officers. Rather, the “duty” owed by the police by virtue of their positions as officers is a duty to protect the public, and the breach of that duty is most properly actionable by the public in the form of criminal prosecution or administrative disposition.

Id. at 628, 510 A.2d 1078 (citations omitted). It adopted the “special duty rule” to define when a particular officer owes a private duty of care to an imperiled person.

If [a plaintiff] alleges sufficient facts to show that the defendant policeman created a “special relationship” with him upon which he relied, he may maintain his action in negligence. This “special duty rule,” as it has been termed by the courts, is nothing more than a modified application of the principle that although generally there is no duty in negligence terms to act for the benefit of any particular person, when one does indeed act for the benefit of another, he must act in a reasonable manner. In order *251 for a special relationship between police officer and victim to be found, it must be shown that the local government or the police officer affirmatively acted to protect the specific victim or a specific group of individuals like the victim, thereby inducing the victim’s specific reliance upon the police protection.

Id. at 630-31, 510 A.2d 1078 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). Applying this “affirmative act plus specific reliance” test, the Court concluded that Ashbum failed to establish a special relationship, because he “alleged no facts which show that [the officer] affirmatively acted specifically for appellant’s benefit or that [the officer’s] actions induced appellant’s reliance upon him.” Id. at 631-32, 510 A.2d 1078.

In Williams v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 359 Md. 101, 753 A.2d 41 (2000), the Court of Appeals recently reviewed a variety of different “special duty tests” used in other jurisdictions. See id. at 146-50, 753 A.2d 41. It explicitly declined to modify the Ashbum test by using the more detailed, multi-part tests adopted in other jurisdictions, holding that “the intent of the ‘special relationship’ doctrine is better addressed by our general standard outlined in Ashburn. ” Id. at 150, 753 A.2d 41. 5

II.

Application Of The Special Duty Rule To Police Dispatchers

Appellant first argues that the trial court erred by applying “no duty to rescue” and “special duty” mies to appellees. She contends that the nature of the relationship between a police dispatcher and a person on whose behalf a call for assistance *252 has been made is one of those “special relationships” that create, as a matter of law, a special duty to rescue. Her theory is that, by providing police dispatchers such as Archer to answer and relay calls for assistance, the HCSO “assumed” a special duty to aid and rescue Tiffany and all other persons on whose behalf a call for police assistance is made. She asserts that, as a matter of law, Archer had a special relationship with Tiffany, and therefore had a special duty to rescue Tiffany, regardless of whether anyone “specifically relied” on Archer’s promise to “send someone out.”

In support of her effort to impose a special duty “per se” on police and other emergency dispatchers, she offers two policy rationales and two legal arguments. We do not find any of these persuasive. Instead, we conclude that the special duty rule should be applied on a case-by-case basis to determine the negligence liability of a police dispatcher.

Before addressing appellant’s arguments, however, we think it is helpful to clarify our focus in cases involving a civil duty to rescue. The initial focus in such cases must be on whether the defendant’s conduct warrants the imposition of a private tort duty, rather than on whether the plaintiffs injuries should be compensable.

Tort liability should not be imposed unless that imposition can be justified on tort criteria. Even when a defendant’s undoubtedly careless conduct has harmed another, tort law asks whether the defendant owed the plaintiff any duty not to act in that manner. Courts face concerns that included unbounded and disproportionate liability, the impact of judgments on defendants and society, the need to deter dangerous conduct, the administrability of new claims in terms of numbers of suits and the nature of proof, and whether a new damage claim can be effectively con-trolled____As tort law currently operates, courts must initially focus on whether the defendant’s conduct warrants the imposition of liability. Compensation, which focuses on the plaintiff, comes into play only after a court *253 concludes the defendant’s conduct warrants the imposition of a duty.

M. Franklin & M. Ploeger, Symposium: Of Rescue and Report: Should Tort Law Impose A Duty To Help Endangered Persons or Abused Children?, 40 Santa Clara L.Rev. 991, 1000 (2000) (emphasis added). Keeping in mind that the threshold question is whether the conduct of police dispatchers warrants imposing a special duty on them as a matter of law, we turn to the important questions raised by this appeal.

A.

Policy Reasons For And Against Imposing A Special Duty On Dispatchers

Appellant’s first policy argument in favor of the blanket imposition of a special duty on dispatchers is that

the legal duty owed by [Archer] to Tiffany .... [was] no different than if a county vehicle operated by an ordinary government employee negligently failed to stop at a traffic signal causing death or injury to another, for which recovery is available.

This “apples-to-oranges” analogy is inapposite. Negligent police dispatchers are not “just like” negligent government drivers, because such dispatchers do not create the plaintiffs peril. The government driver who injures a plaintiff through his negligence is liable because he created the peril, not because he failed to rescue the plaintiff from it. We see no relevant similarity between the negligent dispatcher and the negligent driver.

Appellant’s second reason for imposing a special duty per se on police dispatchers has a broader, and more facially appealing, policy predicate. She argues that

[e]mergency calls for help, either through a 911 system or secondary civilian dispatch operator, have become an integral part of our daily life and society. The State and local governments have assumed the burden and duty to provide aid (emergency and otherwise) to its citizens____ Citizens ... are routinely encouraged to rely upon [this system] and *254 use it regularly for their own safety and for the safety of others who are ... unable to make direct contact.... To suggest that it is acceptable for a dispatch operator to inaccurately convey critical information to responding emergency personnel would severely undermine the public’s confidence in the system and in the system’s ultimate ability to ultimately succeed.... Moreover, allowing such mistakes to continue with the inevitable and foreseeable resultant harm ■without accountability is not an acceptable societal standard.

We are not persuaded, however, that appellant’s legitimate concerns regarding dispatcher standards, accountability, and public reliance justify imposing a private duty of care for each and every call for emergency assistance. We conclude that the presence of a special relationship between a dispatcher and a victim should not be presumed solely on the basis of either a call for assistance or the dispatch of such assistance. We explain, first addressing appellant’s policy concerns, and then our countervailing concerns.

First, we disagree with appellant’s contention that a special duty should be presumed because harm from a dispatcher’s negligence is highly foreseeable. The Ashburn Court made it clear that foreseeability alone cannot establish a special duty in tort. The Court explicitly rejected the use of a strict “forseeability” test as the touchstone for determining whether a police officer has a duty to aid a crime victim. See Ashburn, 306 Md. at 628, 510 A.2d 1078. Acknowledging that the “foreseeability factor” is of critical importance in determining whether there is a legal duty, the Court cautioned that *255 Id. (emphasis added) (citations omitted). See also Valentine, 353 Md. at 551, 727 A.2d 947 (“not all foreseeable harm gives rise to a duty; there are other factors to consider such as intervening circumstances or parties”).

*254 “foreseeability” must not be confused with “duty.” The fact that a result may be foreseeable does not itself impose a duty in negligence terms. This principle is apparent in the acceptance by most jurisdictions and by this Court of the general rule that there is no