Criminal liability for failure to act can only be imposed if a legal duty of care between the parties exists. A legal duty of care can arise from statute, contract, or certain kinds of relationships, such as parent-child or spouse-spouse. Although there may be a moral duty to assist, that alone is not sufficient to establish a legal duty of care.
Carroll Beardsley invited Blanche Burns over to his house for the weekend, when his wife was out of town. From Saturday evening until Monday afternoon, the two spent their time at his place drinking together, except for Sunday afternoon when Beardsley went in for his shift at the Columbia Hotel. When they ran out of liquor, they called upon “a young man” to bring them some more.
Monday afternoon came, and with his wife likely to return at any moment, Beardsley called the young man back to help him fix up the place beforehand. During his visit, Burns gave the young man some money to get camphor and morphine tablets. Burns did not tell Beardsley that she had the tablets, but Beardsley found out when he saw her putting something into her mouth when he entered the room. Seeing that it was morphine, he knocked the box onto the floor and crushed the tablets with his foot, but Burns retrieved and consumed some of them. [1]
Beardsley, with his wife coming home soon and being too drunk to be of any help, called the young man to take the stupored Burns into the basement. Beardsley instructed Skoba, the basement’s tenant, to look after her and let her out when she woke up. Later that night, she died.
Beardsley was convicted of manslaughter by the Michigan circuit court and was sentenced to prison for no less than one year, with a five-year maximum. On appeal, the Michigan Supreme Court found that there was no statute, contract, or special relationship imposing a duty of care on Beardsley. Burns was a guest in Beardsley's home, which did not impose on him a special legal duty. At most, Beardsley had a moral duty to ensure Burns’s safety, but he was not criminally liable.
Authorities Cited:
State v. Noakes (1897)
Citation(s): 70 Vermont Reports 247; 40 Atlantic Reporter 249
Emma, an unmarried house servant of the Noakes, became pregnant with Mr. Noakes’s child. [2] Upon discovering her pregnancy, Mr. Noakes contemplated firing her and kicking her out of the house, but he ultimately let her stay until she recovered from the birth. He provided Emma with housing and a doctor to attend to her when she gave birth, but he never took care of her himself. After the doctor left, Mrs. Noakes attempted to assist Emma. Mrs. Noakes, being ill, was so exhausted that she fell asleep, leaving Emma without her assistance. The baby was suspected to have died of a fracture to the skull that night. The Noakes were convicted of manslaughter in the second degree. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Vermont reversed and remanded for a new trial. The court also noted that “[t]o render criminal the neglect of parents and others having charge of children or other dependents, there must be capacity, means, and ability to provide support and care, or to prevent the threatened harm, as well as the legal duty to provide and act. . . . [i]t is incumbent upon the state, in a criminal prosecution, to prove such capacity. . . as well as the legal duty to provide or act, on the part of the accused.”
The Beardsley court cited Noakes for the principle that a duty to act must be established based on law. Without the establishment of a legal duty, a person cannot be liable, even if the facts of the case were sufficient for conviction had the duty been established.
Regina v. Instan (1893)
Citation(s): 17 Cox's Criminal Cases 602
Ann Hunt was bedridden after developing gangrene. She lived with her niece, Instan, who failed to provide her with assistance. Instan did not call a medical practitioner or a neighbor to attend to her aunt, nor did she provide her aunt medicine or food, all while living off of her aunt’s meager income. When Hunt’s body was found it was already visibly decomposed, only partially dressed, and lying “partly on the ground and partly prone upon the bed.” Instan was convicted of manslaughter for failing to provide food, nursing, and medical attendance. The conviction was affirmed on grounds that Hunt’s death, although ultimately caused by gangrene, was significantly accelerated by her neglect. The court decided that Instan did have a legal duty of care, at least to provide food, which Hunt could only get from Instan with Hunt’s money.
The Beardsley court cited Instan to support the distinction between a moral and a legal duty. In the words of the Instan opinion: “[i]t is not correct to say that every moral obligation is a legal duty, but every legal duty is founded upon a moral obligation–legal duty can be nothing else than…the performance of the moral obligation.”
Regina v. Nicholls (1874)
Citation(s): 13 Cox's Criminal Cases 75
After the death of her daughter, Nicholls undertook the care of her infant grandchild. Nicholls was a very poor woman, so out of necessity she left the baby with a nine-year-old boy for much of the day while she worked. Eventually, the infant, Charles Nicholls, died due to lack of proper nourishment. The court acknowledged that perhaps Nicholls participated in some negligent behaviors–leaving the baby for so many hours in the care of a nine-year-old, not instructing the child to feed the baby, and not checking that the child did feed the baby what little food was in the house. However, the court recognized that some of these behaviors were unavoidable due to her situation. Nicholls was eventually acquitted because any negligence that occurred did not rise to the level of wicked negligence needed for a manslaughter conviction. The court defined wicked negligence as “negligence so great ... you must be of opinion that the prisoner had a wicked mind, in the sense she was reckless or careless whether the creature died or not.”
Normally, grandparents would not have a legal duty of care to their grandchildren. However, because Nicholls voluntarily chose to take care of this helpless infant, as opposed to sending the child to a workhouse or a church orphanage, a duty of care was established. A duty of care would be established for any adult who chooses to take care of someone who is made helpless from “infancy, simplicity, lunacy, or other infirmity.”
The Beardsley court cited Nicholls to distinguish the relationship between Nicholls and her grandchild from Beardsley and Burns. Burns was not sufficiently “helpless” from simplicity, lunacy, or other infirmity. Thus, Beardsley and Burns’s relationship did not resemble the sort of relationship that would imply a duty of care.
United States v. Knowles (1864)
Citation(s): 26 Federal Cases 800 (DISTRICT?); 4 Sawyer's Reports 517
While rolling up a sail, Swainson fell overboard from the Charger, a ship owned by the U.S. government. Knowles, captain of the ship, chose not to stop the ship, lower the tender boats, or make any other efforts to rescue Swainson. As a result, Swainson drowned.
As captain, Knowles had a duty both by law and contract to do everything necessary to ensure the safety of his crewmen and passengers, even if it meant incurring extra time or money. Thus, Knowles should have made all reasonable efforts to rescue Swainson, so long as it was feasible and did not endanger the ship or the other people aboard. Knowles was acquitted, but only because the jury could not find beyond a reasonable doubt that Knowles’s omission was the direct cause of Swainson’s death.
The Beardsley court cited Knowles to emphasize that duties to act are not created by moral obligations or values, but only by law or contract. While the act of not assisting someone in danger may be reprehensible, without that duty by law or contract it is only punishable in the court of public opinion and not a court of law.
More Resources:
- Newspaper clipping: Harvest of One Sin - Debauch That Killed a Woman Now Has a Crazy Wife to Answer For. Fri, May 25, 1906.
Newspapers.comTM - People v Beardsley - Law and Morals in the Industrial Age
Supplement from the Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society