Doe v. Lamb

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Doe v. Lamb

JANE DOE 1 ET AL. v. CHRISTOPHER
LAMB ET AL.
(AC 46466)
Elgo, Clark and Westbrook, Js.

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, victims of criminal computer hacking by the defendant L,
appealed from the summary judgment rendered by the trial court in favor
of L’s parent, the defendant J. The plaintiffs claimed that the court improperly
granted summary judgment because J had voluntarily assumed a duty of
care to them to monitor and supervise L’s Internet usage at J’s home or, in
the alternative, J owed a general duty of care arising from her affirmative
conduct, and J failed to prevent L, an adult, from hacking into the plaintiffs’
social media accounts to obtain and post on the Internet photographs of
them in the nude. Held:

The trial court properly rendered summary judgment for J on the plaintiffs’
claims sounding in negligence, in which they alleged that J had voluntarily
assumed a duty of care to them, as this court could not conclude that a
reasonable person in J’s position could foresee that the mere act of providing
a computer or Internet service to an adult child would result in the kind of
harm the plaintiffs alleged, and, although J had made gratuitous, unsolicited
email statements to the police representing what she had done and was
intending to do to prevent future hacking attempts by L, there was no
genuine issue of material fact that J did not learn that L had stolen the
plaintiffs’ photographs and posted them online until after that conduct
had ceased.

Furthermore, contrary to the plaintiffs’ claim, public policy considerations,
under the circumstances at issue, did not compel the conclusion that J’s
actions gave rise to a duty of care to the plaintiffs, as the parties’ normal
expectations weighed against establishing such a duty, any benefit that
might accrue from recognizing a public policy of encouraging parents to
monitor their adult children’s Internet use could not be counterbalanced
by the practical difficulties inherent in taking on such a task, the recognition
of such a legal duty would increase litigation, and the decisions of courts
in other jurisdictions informed this court’s determination that it could not
conclude that J had taken on a policy of supervising L that was analogous
to that of employers who undertake to supervise their employees.

The plaintiffs’ claim that J owed them and other similarly situated victims
a general duty of care on the basis of her assurances to the police that she
would supervise L’s computer related activities was unavailing, as this court
was not convinced that J, in voluntarily undertaking to monitor L’s activities,
increased the risk of harm to the plaintiffs, who provided no evidentiary
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Doe v. Lamb
basis for their assertion that, subsequent to her statements to the police, J
knew that L would be tempted to engage in further misconduct or that no
one else would assume the responsibility for preventing his misconduct,
and the fact that the General Assembly has not expressed, by way of statute,
a public policy interest supporting the imposition of third-party liability
against those who provide Internet access to others weighed against creating
a common-law duty of care in such circumstances.

Argued January 13—officially released September 23, 2025

Procedural History

Action to recover damages for, inter alia, intentional
infliction of emotional distress, and for other relief,
brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of
Windham at Putnam, where the court, Lynch, J.,
granted the motion for summary judgment filed by the
defendant Matthew Lohbush; thereafter, the court,
Lohr, J., granted the motion for summary judgment
filed by the defendant JoAnn Lohbush as to the plaintiff
Jane Doe 2; subsequently, the court, Lohr, J., granted
the motion for summary judgment filed by the defen-
dant JoAnn Lohbush as to the plaintiff Jane Doe 1 et
al. and rendered judgment for the defendant JoAnn
Lohbush, from which the plaintiffs appealed to this
court. Affirmed.

James J. Healy, with whom was Christopher P.
Anderson, for the appellants (plaintiffs).
Stephanie M. Javarauckas, with whom, on the brief,
was Edward W. Gasser, for the appellee (defendant
JoAnn Lohbush).

Opinion

ELGO, J. This civil action concerns the criminal con-
duct of the defendant Christopher Lamb, who, utilizing
Internet services and computer devices provided by the
defendant JoAnn Lohbush, hacked into the personal
accounts of and harassed and exploited a number of
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Doe v. Lamb

innocent victims. The plaintiffs—Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe
1

2, Jane Doe 3, and John Doe 1—jointly appeal from
the partial summary judgment rendered in favor of the
defendant.2 The plaintiffs claim that the trial court
improperly rendered summary judgment in favor of the
defendant because she voluntarily assumed a duty of
care as to the plaintiffs or, in the alternative, that the
defendant owed a general duty of care arising from her
affirmative conduct.3 We affirm the judgment of the
trial court.
The record, viewed in the light most favorable to the
plaintiffs as the nonmoving parties; see, e.g., Schilberg
Integrated Metals Corp. v. Continental Casualty Co.,
263 Conn. 245, 252, 819 A.2d 773 (2003); reveals the
following relevant facts and procedural history. In the
1
Lohbush is the mother of Christopher Lamb. For clarity, we refer to
Lohbush as the defendant and to Christopher Lamb by name in this appeal
from the partial summary judgment rendered in favor of Lohbush. See Tryon
v. North Branford, 58 Conn. App. 702, 703 n.1, 755 A.2d 317 (2000). Moreover,
although Lamb’s stepfather, Matthew Lohbush, was originally named as a
defendant in this action, the trial court rendered summary judgment in his
favor without objection in June, 2021.
In addition, we note that Lamb was an adult at all times relevant to this
appeal and the events leading to his arrest. Following his arrest, Lamb
pleaded guilty to various crimes related to his use of the Internet to hack into
the plaintiffs’ personal accounts and to disseminate compromising personal
photographs of the plaintiffs. He was sentenced to a twenty year term of
incarceration, execution suspended after eight years, followed by thirty
years of probation. In this opinion, all references to Lamb’s statements are
from the transcript of a January 3, 2019 polygraph interview of him that
was conducted as part of the criminal investigation into his activities. That
transcript was submitted to the trial court in the present case as an exhibit
to Jane Doe 2’s memorandum of law in opposition to the defendant’s motion
for summary judgment.
2
Because the partial summary judgment disposed of all counts brought
by the plaintiffs against the defendant, this appeal is properly before us.
See Practice Book § 61-3.
3
In addition, the plaintiffs claim that, if the defendant owed a duty of
care to them, the plaintiffs’ claims of negligent supervision also should not
have been denied. Because we conclude that the defendant did not owe the
plaintiffs a duty of care under either theory put forth by the plaintiffs, we
do not reach this issue.
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Doe v. Lamb

winter of 2012, Lamb, then twenty years of age, moved
back home to live with the defendant and his stepfather
in the town of Brooklyn. Having failed out of college,
Lamb was, by his own account, ‘‘[r]eally depressed,’’
and he attempted suicide. Lamb ‘‘had way too much
time’’ on his hands and, by some point in 2013, had
‘‘figured out’’ that he could break into people’s social
media and cloud accounts4 because it was ‘‘exciting
. . . .’’5 Although the effects of Lamb’s hacking were
devastating, his methods were somewhat crude—he
would change passwords to various accounts, e.g.,
iCloud, by answering the requisite security questions.
Lamb would determine the answers to the security ques-
tions by using Facebook or other social media to access
various personal details, such as a pet’s name, a favorite
food, or a first car. Locating the answers to these ‘‘fairly
easy’’ questions was made possible by the fact that
‘‘everybody’’ in his age group has ‘‘a Facebook, and
Instagram, a Twitter where they post all this informa-
tion. . . . [A]nd, if you look for it, you could find pretty
much . . . any kind of information.’’ After securing
access to these accounts, he would then enlist the help
4
Cloud accounts are information storage and retrieval systems that are
utilized by computers and cell phones, e.g., iCloud, Dropbox, Gmail, etc.
Increasingly, ‘‘the data a user views on many modern cell phones may not
in fact be stored on the device itself.’’ Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 397,
134 S. Ct. 2473, 189 L. Ed. 2d 430 (2014). ‘‘Cloud computing is the capacity
of Internet-connected devices to display data stored on remote servers rather
than on the device itself. Cell phone users often may not know whether
particular information is stored on the device or in the cloud, and it generally
makes little difference.’’ Id. Gaining access to an individual’s cloud account,
as occurred in the present case, can reveal immense amounts of personal
and sensitive information.
5
Lamb’s behavior escalated over the course of several years. As he stated:
‘‘[A]s time went on, I kept on doing it more and more, and then it . . .
wasn’t enough at some points. You know, it’s like breaking in and taking
pictures wasn’t enough; so, I had to post the pictures or send it to them.
And then I’d have to . . . almost start, like, shaming these girls . . . for
no really apparent reason. It wasn’t like I had any grudges against them
or anything like that. It was just something that gave me some type of
excitement . . . .’’
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of anonymous individuals on a website called ‘‘Anon-
IB’’ to extract all the data from them. Lamb would
then harvest any compromising or otherwise explicit
photographs, using those images as leverage to con-
vince young women to send him more photographs. He
conducted all of these activities through the Internet
service provided by the defendant, and using an Internet
protocol address (IP address) that, ultimately, was iden-
tified by the police as the origination of his criminal
activity.6

Although Lamb was ‘‘creating fake Facebook accounts
and messaging all these girls and sending their pics and
demanding more,’’ he was not ‘‘covering [his] tracks’’
and it was ‘‘fairly easy’’ to determine the origin of this
activity.7 Lamb was ‘‘extremely scared’’ that he would
get caught and tried to stop himself from continuing
on this course of action. He nevertheless ‘‘couldn’t’’
stop and ‘‘just needed to do it.’’ Although Lamb did not
sell any of the images that he obtained, he did broadly
distribute them directly to the parents, friends, employ-
ers, schoolteachers, and other contacts of the victims.
Lamb estimated that he hacked between seventy and
one hundred individuals and obtained sexual images
from approximately twenty or twenty-five of them. All
of this criminal activity was done through the Internet
connection and devices that were provided to Lamb by
6
‘‘All computers that connect to the Internet identify each other through
a unique string of numbers known as an Internet protocol address . . . .
In general, when a subscriber purchases Internet service from an Internet
service provider (ISP), the ISP selects from a roster of IP addresses under
its control and assigns a unique IP address to the subscriber at a particular
physical address.’’ (Citation omitted.) Commonwealth v. Martinez, 476 Mass.
410, 410–11, 71 N.E.3d 105 (2017).
7
Lamb claimed that he tried, ‘‘[a] couple of times,’’ to hide the defendant’s
IP address but that it was only ‘‘[l]ike, 25 percent of the time, maybe . . . .’’
Lamb also opined that what he had done was not ‘‘technically’’ hacking but
was more akin to ‘‘social engineering’’ because he was not ‘‘breaking, like,
any of the code or anything like that.’’
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Doe v. Lamb

the defendant, and which were completely under her
control.
In August, 2015, Trooper Matthew Pritchard of the
Connecticut State Police visited the residence of the
defendant while investigating hacking attempts that had
originated from her home Internet connection. At that
time, Pritchard informed the defendant that there had
been an attempt to hack into a young woman’s Face-
book account, that it ‘‘hadn’t been accessed,’’ and that
the IP address of the hacker had been traced to the
defendant’s home Internet service. The defendant sub-
sequently engaged in an email correspondence with
officers of the state police, in which she denied that
any member of her family had been involved in hacking
activity and promised to monitor the Internet traffic
through her home. Initially ‘‘scared’’ by the visit by the
state police, Lamb stopped hacking for ‘‘a few months
. . . .’’
Following the visit by the state police, the defendant
started ‘‘randomly going through the computers in the
house’’ to look for anything ‘‘suspicious.’’ She took
Lamb’s computer ‘‘a few times’’ to ‘‘look through it’’ to
make sure he wasn’t ‘‘doing anything’’ improper, but
the defendant ‘‘really didn’t know what [she] was sup-
posed to be looking for . . . .’’8 At some point after
this initial contact by the police, Lamb disclosed to the
defendant that he was the person who had drawn their
attention and that he had hacked ‘‘a few others’’ as
well.9 At that time, Lamb did not inform the defendant
8
We note that Lamb’s brother, John Lamb, also resided at the Brooklyn
home during this time period. In his deposition testimony, John Lamb stated
that he could not recall any time, while he resided there, when the defendant
examined his laptop or cell phone.
9
With respect to what the defendant knew, Lamb stated: ‘‘I didn’t . . .
go into detail of what I was doing. . . . [The defendant] didn’t quite get
what I was doing. I think that she thought, you know, I kind of tried to get
into someone’s account for whatever reason or whatever, and then—you
know, it’s like, you know, don’t do it again. . . . [Y]ou can get in a lot of
trouble for that, whatever. I mean, [she was] clearly mad, disappointed at
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that, in addition to hacking into those personal
accounts, he had stolen photographs of nude females
from those accounts and posted them online. Shortly
after this conversation with the defendant, Lamb dis-
posed of his computer, which had been purchased for
him by the defendant, in a commercial dumpster.
Police officers returned to the defendant’s home with
a search warrant in September, 2017. Lamb subse-
quently received inpatient and outpatient care due to
fears that he remained suicidal after having attempted
to commit suicide several years previously. In March,
2018, Lamb surrendered himself to authorities when
criminal charges were brought against him.
The plaintiffs initiated this civil action against the
defendant and Lamb in August, 2018. The operative
complaint contained forty-eight counts—eight of which
are relevant to this appeal. The plaintiffs alleged, inter
alia, claims sounding in negligence and negligent super-
vision against the defendant. For instance, the sixth
count alleged that, with respect to Jane Doe 1, the
defendant had provided unrestricted Internet access to
Lamb even though she knew or should have known
me and stuff, but . . . I didn’t really explain it very well.’’ When Lamb was
asked more specifically what he had disclosed to the defendant, Lamb
replied, ‘‘I never told her that I was, like, stealing naked pictures and posting
them online . . . . I don’t know exactly how many I had gotten at that
point but, you know, more than I mentioned.’’ Lamb further elaborated that,
after this first conversation, ‘‘We never really talked about it again, not until
obviously September when everything kind of blew up. . . . [J]ust because
she figured they weren’t going to press any charges and stuff anyway that,
you know, it’s done with. Just kind of sweep it under the rug and kind of
move on type of thing, I guess . . . .’’ Lamb also stated: ‘‘I never specifically
said, like, I stole these pictures and posted them online. I never brought
my brother into this in any way or my friends . . . . I was ashamed. . . .
I knew if something happened like this, they could get in trouble. . . .
Maybe I feel that my parents not cracking down enough assisted me, I guess,
in a way, by not taking my computer, not watching over me as closely, not
getting me help and stuff . . . . [T]hey assisted me in pretty much letting
me continue doing it even though they weren’t aware they were helping me.’’
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Doe v. Lamb

that Lamb had a ‘‘propensity’’ to engage in ‘‘hacking
activities and/or to engage in the dissemination of
defamatory material . . . .’’ The plaintiffs further
alleged that the defendant’s ‘‘carelessness and negli-
gence’’ in failing to supervise Lamb or monitor him ‘‘in
any way’’ had caused injuries to the plaintiffs, including
severe anxiety, nausea, panic attacks, high blood pres-
sure, post-traumatic stress disorder, bullying and
harassment.10
In November, 2021, the defendant moved for sum-
mary judgment (first motion) with respect to the claims
brought against her by Jane Doe 2. The defendant’s
counsel argued, in relevant part, that Jane Doe 2’s
claims of negligence ran afoul of the general prohibition
against imposing a duty on individuals to control the
conduct of others. More specifically, the defendant’s
counsel argued that she did not owe a duty to prevent
Lamb from using the Internet, to restrict his access to
the Internet, or to supervise Lamb while he was on the
Internet. Further, the defendant’s counsel argued that
she had no special relationship with Lamb such that
any duty to the plaintiffs would attach, and that the
plaintiffs were alleging that the defendant should ‘‘antic-
ipate, and therefore be liable for, [Lamb’s] actions sim-
ply because she is his parent.’’
In July, 2022, Jane Doe 2 filed her opposition to the
defendant’s motion for summary judgment. In relevant
part, she argued that the defendant knew or should
have known that Lamb was using the devices provided
by her to ‘‘engage in an activity in such a manner as to
create an unreasonable risk of harm to others’’ and that
she ‘‘failed to prevent [Lamb] from having access to
those devices.’’ Jane Doe 2 also argued that there was
10
The defendant’s answer to the plaintiffs’ complaint asserted special
defenses that the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the applicable statutes
of limitations. See General Statutes §§ 52-577 and 52-584.
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ample evidence, including the visit from the state police
as well as Lamb’s polygraph examination; see footnote
1 of this opinion; that suggested that the defendant
actually knew that Lamb was using her IP address to
engage in such conduct. Last, drawing on a theory of
social host liability, Jane Doe 2 argued that she had
pleaded a cognizable claim of negligence because she
had alleged that the defendant, in providing Lamb with
Internet access, had assumed a duty to third parties.
Jane Doe 2 posited that, like a social host who know-
ingly provides alcohol to an individual who subse-
quently injures third parties, Lamb’s tortious conduct
was within the scope of the risk that the defendant knew
or should have known that she was creating through
her actions. Jane Doe 2 further argued that, after the
2015 visit by Pritchard, the defendant had failed to
investigate the origin of the hacking attempts, had failed
to notify the police of Lamb’s activities, and had failed
to ‘‘avoid the probability of harm to the plaintiffs.’’ Nota-
bly, Jane Doe 2 did not argue that the defendant’s emails
to Pritchard constituted a voluntary assumption of a
duty to her and the other plaintiffs.
On August 22, 2022, the trial court heard argument
on the first motion for summary judgment. The court
began by inquiring as to what distinction existed
between the defendant and her husband, who had been
granted summary judgment without objection by the
plaintiffs. See footnote 1 of this opinion. The court
stated: ‘‘And so the question is as to his mother’s culpa-
bility and . . . for her to say, yes, I paid the [Internet
and cellular bills]. . . . [T]he argument is, well, if you
did that then you are liable. You had control.’’
The court then asked the plaintiffs’ counsel to explain
how a duty arises under the facts of this case, posing
a hypothetical in which a person rents a room to a
tenant, providing that tenant with Internet access.
Counsel for the plaintiffs then argued that a party who
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has control over the Internet and who knows or should
have known that it is being used for criminal activity
would have a special relationship with the tenant who
was alleged to be engaged in criminal activity. The court
then inquired as to the issue of an assumption of duty,
pointing out the few steps that the defendant took after
Pritchard’s visit, ‘‘she changed passwords, she looked
into, you know, this or that . . . .’’
Counsel for the plaintiffs further argued that social
host liability provided an analogous situation due to
the ‘‘active participation’’ of the ‘‘person in control,’’
stating: ‘‘And the reason I say that [the defendant had
a duty] is that it’s analogous to this situation because
she had exclusive control over the IP address. Of the
cellular service. She has years worth of knowledge of
[Lamb] and whether she should supervise [Lamb]
. . . .’’ In essence, the plaintiffs’ counsel argued that the
duty to third parties arose as a result of the defendant’s
special knowledge of and relationship to Lamb. When
pressed by the court as to whether the analysis would
change if Lamb were paying rent to the defendant, the
plaintiffs’ counsel stated that it would not make any
difference because ‘‘she knows that he doesn’t have a
job, he never leaves the basement, he’s always on the
computer . . . . But then the police come to [her]
house and say something’s going on here. In the instru-
mentality that [she] control[s].’’ The court then asked:
‘‘And she says, I know nothing about that. Maybe some-
body’s hacking in. I’ll change the password. . . . [I]s
she under a duty to do anything?’’ The plaintiffs’ counsel
responded that, ‘‘under negligent supervision, I would
say yes, she’s under a duty . . . to take reasonable
steps to make sure that nothing likely to cause or possi-
bly causing harm happens.’’
Encouraging the trial court to analogize the circum-
stances at hand to social host liability, the plaintiffs’
counsel argued, inter alia, that the ‘‘distinction in all of
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Doe v. Lamb

those lines of cases [discussing social host liability is]
active involvement versus passive involvement. . . .
She had exclusive control over the IP address [and] the
cellular service. She has years worth of knowledge of
[Lamb] and whether she [could] reasonably supervise
[Lamb] over those periods of time.’’ The plaintiffs’ coun-
sel further argued that, in light of the plaintiffs’ not
opposing the granting of summary judgment in favor
of Lamb’s stepfather; see footnote 1 of this opinion; the
issue of the defendant’s control over the Internet and
cellular service in the home was dispositive in that it
created a ‘‘special relationship’’ between Lamb and his
mother, the defendant, such that a duty to third parties
should attach. Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ counsel argued
that the defendant knew that she could be exposed to
civil liability because, after the police visited her home
in 2015 and Lamb had told her what he had done, the
defendant had protected him from the state police for
the next two years.
The parties filed supplemental memoranda of law
after the hearing on the first motion for summary judg-
ment. In their supplemental memorandum of law, the
plaintiffs argued, inter alia, that ‘‘[b]ecause the defen-
dant . . . told the Connecticut State Police in 2015 that
she had taken steps to [e]nsure that no one in her house
with access to her IP address was using that IP address
in an inappropriate manner, she voluntarily assumed
a duty of reasonable care to make sure the family’s
computer devices and cell phones were not being used
to cause harm to [Jane Doe 2]. And as she voluntarily
assumed a duty of reasonable care, there are genuine
issues of material fact as to whether the defendant acted
reasonably, or breached that duty,’’ thereby rendering
summary judgment inappropriate.11
11
The emails between Pritchard and the defendant were not attached to
the plaintiffs’ memoranda of law in opposition to either motion for summary
judgment. Those emails were attached to Jane Doe 2’s September 21, 2022
supplemental memorandum of law in opposition to the first motion for
summary judgment.
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On February 8, 2023, the trial court granted the defen-
dant’s first motion for summary judgment on the negli-
gence, negligent entrustment, negligent supervision,
and fraudulent transfer claims brought by Jane Doe 2
against the defendant.12 In its memorandum of decision,
the court determined that no genuine issue of material
fact existed as to whether the defendant had ‘‘owned,
leased, rented, maintained, managed and/or controlled
the home computer, laptop computers, and/or mobile
smart phones’’ that were kept at her home, where Lamb
resided, and that the defendant had provided the IP
address and equipment necessary to access the Internet
that Lamb had used to hack into the various ‘‘cloud
based personal and social media accounts of various
individuals, including [Jane Doe 2], where he gained
access to, among other items, nude photographs of
[Jane Doe 2].’’ The court also found that no genuine
issue of material fact existed as to whether Lamb
‘‘posted these nude photographs of [Jane Doe 2] on the
Internet and created an online forum for disparaging
comments to be made about [Jane Doe 2]. Some of this
material was electronically forwarded to [Jane Doe 2’s]
contacts, parents, friends, teachers, school administra-
tors and places of employment.’’ The court also found
that there was no genuine issue of material fact that,
after another individual who is not a party to this case
filed a complaint, officers of the state police became
aware that someone utilizing the defendant’s IP address
had attempted to change passwords on multiple online
accounts. In addition, there is no dispute that Pritchard
traveled to the defendant’s home and spoke with her
and her family regarding the use of their IP address to
‘‘change this individual’s passwords without her permis-
sion’’ and that, at that time, all members of the defen-
dant’s family, including Lamb, denied being the source
of this hacking attempt.
12
Jane Doe 2 appealed from the summary judgment rendered by the trial
court on February 8, 2023. This court dismissed the appeal on April 26,
2023, for lack of a final judgment.
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Doe v. Lamb

With respect to Jane Doe 2’s negligence claim, the
court concluded that General Statutes § 52-572 plainly
did not apply in the present case, as it pertains solely
to parental liability for the torts of their minor children.
The court also noted that ‘‘it is not at all foreseeable
that allowing a person to use one’s Internet services
will lead to that individual hacking into another’s social
media accounts in order to obtain intimate pictures to
post on the Internet’’ and thus concluded that there
was no genuine issue of material fact as to whether the
defendant voluntarily assumed a duty to Jane Doe 2.
With respect to Jane Doe 2’s negligent entrustment
claim, the court stated in relevant part that she ‘‘has
provided the court with numerous cases from different
jurisdictions where courts have noted the potential dan-
gers that lurk on the Internet. The court is certainly
mindful of the myriad of negative activities that can
occur online. Notably absent from [Jane Doe 2’s memo-
randum of law] are cases in which courts have found
that the Internet and/or associated devices that can
be used to access it have been considered dangerous
instrumentalities for the purpose of supporting a negli-
gent entrustment cause of action. This court is disin-
clined to break new ground in that regard.’’ (Emphasis
in original.) Emphasizing that, ‘‘under the general law
governing negligent entrustment claims, liability will
exist only where the item at issue is obviously poten-
tially dangerous,’’ the court concluded that no genuine
issue of material fact existed as to whether the elec-
tronic devices and Internet service provided by the
defendant constituted ‘‘the types of dangerous instru-
mentalities that can formulate the underlying basis of
a negligent entrustment cause of action . . . .’’
With respect to Jane Doe 2’s negligent supervision
claim, the court concluded that, ‘‘for all of the reasons
stated in its discussion’’ of the negligence and negligent
entrustment claims, no genuine issue of material fact
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Doe v. Lamb

existed as to whether the defendant owed Jane Doe 2
a duty of care. As the court succinctly stated, ‘‘[t]he
defendant simply did not have any legal obligation to
supervise the conduct of her adult son.’’ For that reason,
the court concluded that summary judgment was appro-
priate on the negligent supervision claim.
Last, with respect to Jane Doe 2’s fraudulent transfer
claim, the court noted that the defendant had furnished
a sworn affidavit, in which she attested to the fact that
she had transferred title to her home to a limited liability
company in an effort to protect her assets while pursu-
ing a real estate venture. In that affidavit, the defendant
further attested that, approximately ten months later,
the limited liability company transferred title back to
her and her husband. The court found that Jane Doe
2 ‘‘made no argument, nor offered any evidence, to
contradict this assertion by the defendant.’’ Because
Jane Doe 2 had failed to establish a factual predicate
for her fraudulent transfer claim, the court concluded
that summary judgment was warranted and rendered
judgment accordingly.
On March 3, 2023, the defendant filed a second motion
for summary judgment as to the three remaining plain-
tiffs (second motion), arguing that she lacked a duty
to any of them and, therefore, could not be held liable
for Lamb’s actions. Conceding that they were ‘‘identi-
cally situated’’ to Jane Doe 2, the remaining plaintiffs
nonetheless argued, in their memorandum of law in
opposition to the second motion for summary judg-
ment, that, because they suffered ‘‘harms individually,’’
the motion should be denied. On April 11, 2023, the
trial court granted the second motion, thereby disposing
of all remaining claims against the defendant, and this
joint appeal followed.
Following the commencement of this appeal, the
plaintiffs moved for an articulation, pursuant to Prac-
tice Book § 66-5, with respect to the trial court’s April
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11, 2023 order granting the defendant’s second motion
for summary judgment. On February 6, 2024, the court
granted that motion and articulated its judgment with
respect to the second motion for summary judgment.
The court noted that the remaining plaintiffs’ claims
were ‘‘substantially similar’’ to those raised by Jane Doe
2 in the first motion for summary judgment and that
the court’s February, 2023 order and memorandum of
decision applied ‘‘with equal force to all four plaintiffs.’’
The court reiterated that it had determined that the
defendant ‘‘owed no legal duty to any of [the plaintiffs]
for tortious acts allegedly committed against them by
her adult son, [Lamb], while utilizing their shared home
Internet service.’’13 The court concluded by stating that
the defendant ‘‘owed no duty of care to any [of the
plaintiffs], under any of the factual scenarios set forth
in their respective claims against her, for Lamb’s alleged
actions.’’
I
On appeal, the plaintiffs first contend that the trial
court improperly rendered summary judgment for the
defendant on their claims sounding in negligence
because the defendant voluntarily assumed a duty of
care to the plaintiffs.14 According to the plaintiffs, the
defendant assumed a duty of care to them because
13
The trial court also stated that, in granting the second motion, it had
‘‘implicitly’’ overruled the objections to the motion for summary judgment,
thereby ‘‘resolving all claims in the case against [the defendant] in her favor.’’
14
Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that the trial court improperly rendered
summary judgment on counts six, eighteen, thirty, and forty-two of their
amended complaint. The sixth count of the operative complaint alleges,
inter alia, that the defendant acted negligently in providing Internet access
to Lamb when she knew or should have known of his ‘‘propensity’’ to engage
in ‘‘hacking activities’’ and that her failure to monitor or stop Lamb from
performing these activities resulted in injury to Jane Doe 1. The eighteenth
count alleges the same with regard to Jane Doe 2. The thirtieth count alleges
the same with regard to Jane Doe 3, and the forty-second count alleges the
same negligent actions with regard to John Doe 1.
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she had knowledge that Lamb had used her Internet
connection for an illicit purpose, exercised exclusive
control over his access to the Internet, and attempted
to ‘‘divert attention elsewhere’’ in order to shield Lamb
from investigation. The plaintiffs argue that, under cer-
tain provisions of the Restatement (Second) of Torts
as well as under Connecticut case law, a duty emerged
out of these circumstances when the defendant ‘‘volun-
tarily undertook to supervise and monitor Lamb’s use
of her Internet connection,’’ and did so in a manner
that was ‘‘cursory, uninformed, and hopelessly defi-
cient’’ even though she ‘‘should have known that she
was utterly incapable’’ of monitoring Lamb’s activity.
Further, the plaintiffs contend that the defendant had
the power and ability to prevent Lamb from using her
Internet connection to harm others, but, despite having
voluntarily ‘‘pledged to supervise and monitor Lamb,’’
the result of her actions was to ‘‘put the victims in a
far worse position.’’ The defendant counters that the
court correctly determined that her statements to
Pritchard were not ‘‘conceptually’’ the same as an
assumption of duty.15 Further, the defendant argues that
the court properly granted the motion for summary
judgment because there is no genuine issue of material
fact at issue, and the defendant did not, as a matter of
law, owe a duty of care to the plaintiffs.
The following additional, undisputed facts and proce-
dural history are relevant to the plaintiffs’ claim. After
15
The defendant refers to comments made by the trial court during the
August 22, 2022 hearing. The court analogized the present situation to a
scenario in which a person jumps in the water to save another individual
from drowning but then ceases the effort to save the drowning person: ‘‘The
theory behind that . . . is that you’re causing others to not do something
who might have [done something], right? You assumed a duty there. But
. . . [t]his is [the defendant’s] Internet. And [the defendant’s] saying . . .
maybe somebody’s hacking in . . . . Let’s change the passwords. [L]et’s
do a few things here. And so, I . . . don’t see that conceptually [to be] the
same as an assumption of the duty.’’
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the August, 2015 visit by the state police, the defendant
engaged in an email correspondence with Pritchard. A
copy of that correspondence, including an email sent
on August 10, 2015, from the defendant to Pritchard,
was attached to the plaintiffs’ supplemental memoran-
dum of law objecting to the second motion for summary
judgment. In that email, the defendant reported, inter
alia, that she had not ‘‘seen any evidence that this inci-
dent involved directly anyone in my household’’ and
that she had determined that her sons had helped her
father with a project in a different town during the days
in which the alleged hacking attempt had taken place.
She assured Pritchard that she knew from speaking
‘‘with someone who works on computers for their job’’
that ‘‘using someone else’s IP address is not that difficult
especially if it is someone outside our household who
has had any connection . . . through the web at any
point with us’’ through her ‘‘fairly unsecured’’ Internet
connection.16 She reported having changed the pass-
word for her Internet service and having instructed her
children not to disclose the new password to ‘‘friends
who come visit.’’ She assured Pritchard that, ‘‘based on
the times of the incidents,’’ she would be ‘‘pretty aware
of any activity in the house whether it was my children
or a friend.’’ Last, the defendant stated that she was
‘‘going to ask for advice’’ to make her Internet connec-
tion ‘‘even more secure,’’ including possibly consulting
with a man her daughter informed her ‘‘is involved in
cyber safety.’’17 The defendant closed the email with
16
The defendant stated, in her deposition testimony, that she could not
remember who the person was to whom she referred in her email to Pritch-
ard, ‘‘but it was someone at the time that worked on repairing computers
or worked on servicing computers or something’’ and that this person had
explained to her that ‘‘you can access accounts if you’ve already had the
password in the past.’’
17
The defendant clarified, in her deposition testimony, that she knows
personally an individual who is a state trooper involved in ‘‘cyber safety’’
but that she never followed through with consulting him because she had
‘‘looked into everything’’ Pritchard had told her to do, deciding ‘‘not to
involve friends of the family in a family matter.’’
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‘‘[t]hank you for bringing this to my attention.’’ That
correspondence indicates that, at that time, Pritchard
was utilizing email simply to schedule visits with the
family.
On October 8, 2015, following a request from Pritch-
ard to schedule another time to visit and speak with
the defendant and her family, the defendant sent
another email to Pritchard, stating, inter alia, that ‘‘I do
want all involved to know that we have spoken severely
to all our children about the dangers of using the
Internet improperly and how important it is to keep
our computers and our [Wi-Fi] secure from even
friends.’’ The defendant also stated: ‘‘We want you to
know that this situation has been monitored from our
end and we have changed passwords etc. and are moni-
toring our laptops including my children’s to be sure
we are aware of all activity.’’
It is undisputed that the defendant continued to pay
for and allow Lamb to access the Internet and devices
in her home until his arrest on March 18, 2018. It also
is undisputed that, sometime after the police visited
the home in 2015, Lamb admitted to the defendant that
he had utilized the Internet provided in the home to
hack into the accounts of several individuals.18 In a
statement provided to law enforcement on January 3,
2019, Lamb explained: ‘‘I didn’t . . . go into detail of
what I was doing. I don’t think [the defendant] . . .
she didn’t quite get what I was doing. I think she thought
[that] I tried to get into someone’s account for whatever
reason or whatever, and then [she said] don’t do it
again. . . . [She was] clearly mad, disappointed at me
. . . but I don’t think—because I didn’t really explain
it very well.’’19 Lamb also told the police that, in retro-
spect, he ‘‘could have said more, gone into detail a little
18
When asked specifically when he first admitted his hacking activities
to the defendant, Lamb stated, ‘‘somewhere around’’ 2015 or 2016.
19
In her deposition testimony, the defendant similarly stated that, although
the police informed her that hacking attempts had originated from her IP
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bit more of what [he] was doing so [the defendant] had
a better understanding that . . . this wasn’t, like, a
small thing . . . .’’ When asked, ‘‘[w]hat specifically did
you tell [the defendant],’’ Lamb stated that he admitted
to hacking into ‘‘a couple of accounts’’ but that he ‘‘never
told her that [he] was . . . stealing naked pictures and
posting them online . . . .’’ Lamb also admitted that,
after informing the defendant of his hacking activities,
he ‘‘threw away’’ the Mac computer he had used for
those activities in a trash can at the Home Depot store
in Willimantic. Lamb stated that he did so ‘‘a few days
after’’ admitting his hacking activities to the defendant.
In ruling on the first motion for summary judgment,
the trial court determined that, the arguments put for-
ward by the plaintiffs notwithstanding, it was ‘‘not at all
foreseeable that allowing a person to use one’s Internet
services will lead to that individual hacking into anoth-
er’s social media accounts in order to obtain intimate
pictures to post on the Internet. The causal connection
between those two activities is simply too attenuated
for this court to determine that the defendant had a
duty to protect [Jane Doe 2] from potential harm.’’ The
court also rejected Jane Doe 2’s argument that the
defendant had voluntarily assumed a duty to her. Inter-
preting §§ 314 A and 324 of the Restatement (Second)
of Torts, the court determined that these provisions
apply ‘‘to individuals who voluntarily take the care,
custody or control of people who are incapacitated or
otherwise incapable of caring for themselves’’ and that
they are, therefore, inapplicable to the actions under-
taken by the defendant. Consequently, the court deter-
mined that there was no legal duty on the part of the
defendant to protect Jane Doe 2 from harm. That rea-
soning was applied by the court ‘‘with equal force’’ to
address in 2015, she did not learn that her Internet service had been used
to steal photographs of nude females from personal accounts and post
them online until the police executed a search warrant at her home in
September, 2017.
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the claims of the remaining plaintiffs. In sum, the court,
having concluded that the defendant owed no legal duty
to any of the plaintiffs for the tortious acts committed
by Lamb, rendered summary judgment in favor of the
defendant on all counts. On appeal, the plaintiffs chal-
lenge the propriety of that determination.
We begin with the relevant legal principles. ‘‘Sum-
mary judgment is a method of resolving litigation when
pleadings, affidavits, and any other proof submitted
show that there is no genuine issue as to any material
fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment
as a matter of law. . . . The motion for summary judg-
ment is designed to eliminate the delay and expense of
litigating an issue when there is no real issue to be
tried.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Grenier v.
Commissioner of Transportation, 306 Conn. 523, 534–
35, 51 A.3d 367 (2012). ‘‘Our review of the trial court’s
decision to grant the defendant’s motion for summary
judgment is plenary. . . . On appeal, we must deter-
mine whether the legal conclusions reached by the trial
court are legally and logically correct and whether they
find support in the facts set out in the memorandum
of decision of the trial court.’’ (Internal quotation marks
omitted.) Hassiem v. O & G Industries, Inc., 197 Conn.
App. 631, 635, 232 A.3d 1139, cert. denied, 335 Conn.
928, 235 A.3d 525 (2020). ‘‘Practice Book § 17-49 pro-
vides that summary judgment shall be rendered forth-
with if the pleadings, affidavits and any other proof
submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any
material fact and that the moving party is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law. . . . In deciding a motion
for summary judgment, the trial court must view the
evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
party. . . . The party seeking summary judgment has
the burden of showing the absence of any genuine issue
[of] material facts which, under the applicable princi-
ples of substantive law, entitle him to a judgment as a
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matter of law . . . and the party opposing such a
motion must provide an evidentiary foundation to dem-
onstrate the existence of a genuine issue of material
fact. . . . A material fact is a fact that will make a
difference in the result of the case. . . . It is not enough
for the moving party merely to assert the absence of
any disputed factual issue; the moving party is required
to bring forward . . . evidentiary facts, or substantial
evidence outside the pleadings to show the absence of
any material dispute. . . . The party opposing sum-
mary judgment must present a factual predicate for his
argument to raise a genuine issue of fact. . . . Once
raised, if it is not conclusively refuted by the moving
party, a genuine issue of fact exists, and summary judg-
ment is inappropriate.’’ (Citations omitted; internal quo-
tation marks omitted.) Martinez v. Premier Mainte-
nance, Inc., 185 Conn. App. 425, 434–35, 197 A.3d 919
(2018).
We next set forth the relevant principles of negli-
gence. ‘‘Issues of negligence are ordinarily not suscepti-
ble of summary adjudication but should be resolved by
trial in the ordinary manner. . . . Nevertheless, [t]he
issue of whether a defendant owes a duty of care is an
appropriate matter for summary judgment because the
question is one of law.’’ (Citation omitted; internal quo-
tation marks omitted.) Streifel v. Bulkley, 195 Conn.
App. 294, 304, 224 A.3d 539, cert. denied, 335 Conn. 911,
228 A.3d 375 (2020).
The establishment of a duty owed to the plaintiffs by
the defendant is a threshold inquiry. ‘‘[A] cause of action
in negligence is comprised of four elements: duty;
breach of that duty; causation; and actual injury. . . .
Whether a duty exists is a question of law for the court,
and only if the court finds that such a duty exists does
the trier of fact consider whether that duty was
breached. . . . If a court determines, as a matter of
law, that a defendant owes no duty to a plaintiff, the
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plaintiff cannot recover in negligence from the defen-
dant. . . . Duty is a legal conclusion about relation-
ships between individuals, made after the fact, and
imperative to a negligence cause of action. The nature
of the duty, and the specific persons to whom it is owed,
are determined by the circumstances surrounding the
conduct of the individual. . . . Foreseeability is a criti-
cal factor in the analysis, because no duty exists unless
an ordinary person in the defendant’s position, knowing
what the defendant knew or should have known, would
anticipate that harm of the general nature of that suf-
fered was likely to result . . . . Our law makes clear
that foreseeability alone, however, does not automati-
cally give rise to a duty of care . . . . A further inquiry
must be made, for we recognize that duty is not sacro-
sanct in itself . . . but is only an expression of the sum
total of those considerations of policy [that] lead the
law to say that the plaintiff is entitled to protection.
. . . The final step in the duty inquiry, then, is to make
a determination of the fundamental policy of the law,
as to whether the defendant’s responsibility should
extend to such results.’’ (Internal quotation marks omit-
ted.) Roux v. Coffey, 230 Conn. App. 130, 139, 330 A.3d
253, cert. denied, 351 Conn. 915, 331 A.3d 1217 (2025).
‘‘Negligence, like risk, is thus a term of relation.’’ Pals-
graf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 345, 162
N.E. 99 (1928); see also Doe v. Cochran, 332 Conn. 325,
339, 210 A.3d 469 (2019) (‘‘Although it has been said
that no universal test for [duty] ever has been formu-
lated . . . our threshold inquiry has always been
whether the specific harm alleged by the plaintiff was
foreseeable to the defendant. The ultimate test of the
existence of the duty to use care is found in the foresee-
ability that harm may result if it is not exercised. . . .
By that is not meant that one charged with negligence
must be found actually to have foreseen the probability
of harm or that the particular injury [that] resulted was
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foreseeable, but the test is, would the ordinary [person]
in the [alleged tortfeasor’s] position, knowing what he
knew or should have known, anticipate that harm of
the general nature of that suffered was likely to result
. . . .’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.)); Jaworski
v. Kiernan, 241 Conn. 399, 406, 696 A.2d 332 (1997) (‘‘A
simple conclusion that the harm to the plaintiff was
foreseeable, however, cannot by itself mandate a deter-
mination that a legal duty exists. Many harms are quite
literally foreseeable, yet for pragmatic reasons, no
recovery is allowed.’’ (Internal quotation marks omit-
ted.)). ‘‘Negligence is not actionable unless it involves
the invasion of a legally protected interest, the violation
of a right. ‘Proof of negligence in the air, so to speak,
will not do.’ ’’ Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.,
supra, 341.
There is a ‘‘general prohibition against imposing upon
an individual a duty to control the conduct of a third
party . . . .’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Can-
nizzaro v. Marinyak, 312 Conn. 361, 368, 93 A.3d 584
(2014). ‘‘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 a duty
to take such action.’’ (Internal quotation marks omit-
ted.) Id.
With these principles in mind, we turn to the central
question posed by the present appeal, namely, whether
a parent who provides an adult child with unfettered
access to electronic devices and Internet service, having
some knowledge that such access is being used by the
adult child for an illicit purpose and having made some
assurances to law enforcement that she had taken cer-
tain precautions to prevent her family members from
using her devices and Internet service for an improper
purpose, owes a duty of care to third parties who are
harmed by criminal activity perpetrated through the
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Internet. In the present case, it is undisputed that the
20

defendant provided a Mac computer and Internet ser-
vice to her adult son after he moved back into the family
home in 2012. It also is undisputed that, sometime in
2015 or 2016; see footnote 18 of this opinion; the defen-
dant learned that her son had utilized those instruments
to engage in hacking activities but was not aware that
he had stolen photographs of nude females or posted
them online until after that conduct ceased. The ques-
tion before us is whether these facts give rise to a duty
under our laws. In answering that question, we begin
with the issue of foreseeability, followed by an analysis
of the various public policy considerations that inform
our resolution of the plaintiffs’ claims.21
20
The defendant, in her appellate brief, argues that the plaintiffs are asking
this court for a ‘‘futile second bite at the apple’’ because she did not argue
adequately to the trial court that her ‘‘representations to [Pritchard are]
evidence of an assumption of a duty to the plaintiffs.’’ More specifically,
the defendant contends that the plaintiffs did not argue to the trial court—
until after oral arguments on the first motion for summary judgment, via
supplemental briefing—that her emails to Pritchard constitute a voluntary
assumption of a duty. Although it is true that the emails were not before
the court until September, 2022, and, therefore, the August, 2022 hearing
on the first motion for summary judgment did not address their role in the
plaintiffs’ claim that the defendant had assumed a duty of care to the plain-
tiffs, this argument is without merit. Our review of the record reveals that
the plaintiffs argued to the court, by way of their supplemental memorandum
of law in opposition to the second motion for summary judgment, that the
defendant had voluntarily assumed a duty of reasonable care because she
had ‘‘told the Connecticut State Police in 2015 that she had taken steps to
[e]nsure that no one in her house with access to her IP address was using
that IP address in an inappropriate manner’’ and that this duty of reasonable
care extends to the plaintiffs. Moreover, our review of the court’s determina-
tion that the defendant did not owe a duty of care to the plaintiffs is plenary.
‘‘Under Connecticut law, [t]he existence of a duty is a question of law . . . .’’
(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Demond v. Project Service, LLC, 331
Conn. 816, 834, 208 A.3d 626 (2019). Accordingly, there is no ‘‘futile second
bite at the apple’’ under these circumstances, where both the requisite facts
and legal argument were before the court.
21
We recognize, as our Supreme Court has in the past, ‘‘that the issue of
foreseeability cannot be neatly compartmentalized and considered wholly
separate from the policy issues that are central to our legal determination
of duty.’’ Lodge v. Arett Sales Corp., 246 Conn. 563, 576, 717 A.2d 215 (1998).
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A
The plaintiffs argue that Lamb’s actions were foresee-
able by the defendant. According to the plaintiffs, our
Supreme Court has stated, in the context of §§ 323 and
324 A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts,22 that ‘‘a
defendant who undertakes to act—even without an obli-
gation to do so—is liable for any harm that flows from
negligent conduct.’’ Because, the plaintiffs contend, the
defendant had been alerted to Lamb’s hacking activities
by law enforcement in 2015, her failure to monitor his
computer usage or prevent him from accessing her
devices and Internet service resulted in the foreseeable
harm suffered by the plaintiffs.23 The defendant count-
ers that, because the harm caused to the plaintiffs was
Although we conclude that no duty exists because the plaintiffs fail to satisfy
either prong of the analysis—foreseeability or public policy—we conduct
both prongs of the analysis because it is impossible to ‘‘neatly’’ compartmen-
talize these two prongs.
22
Section 323 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, titled ‘‘Negligent
Performance of Undertaking to Render Services,’’ states: ‘‘One who under-
takes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which
he should recognize as necessary for the protection of the other’s person
or things, is subject to liability to the other for physical harm resulting from
his failure to exercise reasonable care to perform his undertaking, if (a) his
failure to exercise such care increases the risk of such harm, or (b) the
harm is suffered because of the other’s reliance upon the undertaking.’’ 2
Restatement (Second), Torts § 323, p. 135 (1965).
Section 324 A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, titled ‘‘Liability to
Third Person for Negligent Performance of Undertaking,’’ states: ‘‘One who
undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another
which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of a third person
or his things, is subject to liability to the third person for physical harm
resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to protect his undertak-
ing, if (a) his failure to exercise reasonable care increases the risk of such
harm, or (b) he has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the
third person, or (c) the harm is suffered because of reliance of the other
or the third person upon the undertaking.’’ 2 Restatement (Second), supra,
§ 324 A, p. 142.
23
The plaintiffs also argue that the defendant’s voluntary assumption of
a duty to monitor and supervise Lamb’s computer activity ‘‘increased the
harm to the plaintiffs . . . .’’ Our Supreme Court, for purposes of avoiding
‘‘analytical confusion,’’ made clear that there is a distinction between the
establishment of a duty under § 324 A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts
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not reasonably foreseeable, she owed no duty of care
to the plaintiffs.24 Moreover, the defendant argues that,
even if her actions gave rise to an assumption of a duty
pursuant to § 324 A of the Restatement (Second), that
duty was not intended to protect the plaintiffs and,
therefore, the duty was not assumed in order to ‘‘render
services to protect another.’’ (Emphasis omitted.) As
such, the defendant argues that our Supreme Court’s
precedents, generally, as well as § 324 A of the Restatement
(Second), specifically, limit any such duty to the fore-
seeable injuries suffered by persons intended to be ben-
eficiaries, which does not include the plaintiffs. We
agree with the defendant.
The following principles of foreseeability are relevant
to resolving the plaintiffs’ claim. ‘‘The default assump-
tion of the common law . . . is that one owes a duty
to exercise due care in one’s affirmative conduct with
respect to all people, insofar as one’s negligent actions
and the attaching of liability once that duty is found to exist. ‘‘If a duty is
owed, liability under § 324A for breach of the duty is determined by reference
to subsections (a), (b) and (c) of § 324A. But the duty question comes first
under § 324A, the same as it does in other areas of tort law, and this threshold
inquiry must not be overlooked in cases under § 324A in which the scope
of that duty is disputed.’’ Demond v. Project Service, LLC, 331 Conn. 816,
835 n.12, 208 A.3d 626 (2019). Because we conclude that the defendant did
not, as an initial matter, owe a duty to the plaintiffs, we need not address
whether her actions gave rise to liability by increasing the risk of harm to
the plaintiffs, under § 324 A (a).
24
The defendant also argues that Lamb’s actions were not foreseeable
because the plaintiffs did not suffer any physical harm. In support of this
argument, the defendant points to Liberty Ins. Corp. v. Lamb, United States
District Court, Docket No. 3:19-cv-00005 (AWT) (D. Conn. September 10,
2021), a federal District Court decision in favor of Liberty Insurance Corpora-
tion. In that action, Liberty Insurance Corporation sought a declaratory
judgment that it did not owe a duty to defend or indemnify Lamb or the
defendant in the plaintiffs’ state court action. During the proceedings, the
District Court ruled that the plaintiffs had not suffered physical harm, as
that term was defined ‘‘within the meaning of the insuring agreement’’ of the
pertinent insurance policies. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Because
we conclude that the defendant did not owe a duty to the plaintiffs, the issue
of harm is not before us. Accordingly, we decline to address this argument.
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may foreseeably harm them.’’ Doe v. Cochran, supra,
332 Conn. 339. In Connecticut, we ‘‘impose only a lim-
ited duty to take action to prevent injury to a third
person. Our point of departure has been that absent a
special relationship of custody or control, there is no
duty to protect a third person from the conduct of
another.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fraser v.
United States, 236 Conn. 625, 632, 674 A.2d 811 (1996).
‘‘Thus, initially, if it is not foreseeable to a reasonable
person in the defendant’s position that harm of the type
alleged would result from the defendant’s actions to a
particular plaintiff, the question of the existence of a
duty to use due care is foreclosed, and no cause of
action can be maintained by the plaintiff.’’ (Internal
quotation marks omitted.) Id., 633. However, ‘‘[as] long
as harm of the general nature as that which occurred
is foreseeable there is a basis for liability even though
the manner in which the accident happens is unusual,
bizarre or unforeseeable.’’ (Internal quotation marks
omitted.) Ruiz v. Victory Properties, LLC, 315 Conn.
320, 335, 107 A.3d 381 (2015).
In support of their assertion that the defendant owed
a duty to them, the plaintiffs argue that the circum-
stances of this case ‘‘align directly with Supreme Court
precedent’’ because the defendant ‘‘ ‘gratuitously under-
took’ ’’ to supervise Lamb’s activity on the Internet,
thereby assuming ‘‘ ‘a duty to do so safely.’ ’’25 In support
25
The plaintiffs also baldly assert, as further support for their claim that
the defendant owed a duty to them, that ‘‘the defendant also misled the
state police into believing that the defendant was diligently monitoring her
children in the manner that she had promised.’’ We do not construe that
sentence in their principal appellate brief as a distinct claim regarding
law enforcement’s reliance on the defendant’s representations but, rather,
merely as further support for their duty of care claim. Moreover, the plaintiffs
have neither cited to legal authority for nor provided any analysis of such
a claim. Accordingly, we decline to consider that claim independent of the
duty of care claim raised by the plaintiffs. See, e.g., Connecticut Coalition
Against Millstone v. Connecticut Siting Council, 286 Conn. 57, 87, 942 A.2d
345 (2008) (when ‘‘an issue is merely mentioned, but not briefed beyond a
bare assertion of the claim, it is deemed to have been waived’’ (internal
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of this proposition, the plaintiffs cite to our Supreme
Court’s decision in Grenier v. Commissioner of Trans-
portation, supra, 306 Conn. 546–47, as well as this
court’s decision in Coville v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co.,
57 Conn. App. 275, 282, 748 A.2d 875 (2000), cert.
granted, 253 Conn. 919, 755 A.2d 213 (2000) (appeal
withdrawn March 30, 2001).
In Grenier, our Supreme Court concluded that a
national organization owed a duty of care to a student
member because the organization undertook to provide
transportation from a mandatory event, despite being
under no obligation to provide such transportation. See
Grenier v. Commissioner of Transportation, supra,
306 Conn. 546–47. Grenier, then, stands for the proposi-
tion that, under the specific facts of that case, the party
who undertook to provide transportation from an event
under its control assumed a duty to those to whom it
offered transportation. Because there was no third-
party duty at issue in Grenier, we conclude that it is
inapposite.
Coville is similarly inapt to the present case. In
Coville, the defendant driver forced his girlfriend—inca-
pacitated due to alcohol consumption—to ride in his
car with him, refusing to let her out of the vehicle
despite her repeated attempts to escape. Coville v. Lib-
erty Mutual Ins. Co., supra, 57 Conn. App. 276–77. She
subsequently fell out of the vehicle while still under the
defendant driver’s custody or control, becoming injured
in the process. Id. We determined that, under those
factual circumstances, it was appropriate for the trial
court to instruct the jury that, should it find that the
plaintiff girlfriend was ‘‘helpless in that she was intoxi-
cated to the point of being semiconscious and was
quotation marks omitted)); State v. Nathaniel T., 230 Conn. App. 45, 52–53,
329 A.3d 285 (2024) (declining to review claim as inadequately briefed when
defendant did not provide any analysis or citation to authority in support
of claim).
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unable to take care of herself,’’ this could be a basis,
under provisions of the Restatement (Second) of Torts
and consistent with Connecticut law, to conclude that
the defendant driver had a specific ‘‘duty to secure [her]
safety.’’ Id., 283. Coville thus stands for the proposition
that a party can voluntarily assume a duty of care to a
person who is under the custody or control of that
party as a result of those voluntary actions. There is
no such scenario present here, where the plaintiffs
allege that a duty of care was owed to them as a result
of the defendant’s voluntary actions with respect to
Lamb, because the plaintiffs were not under the defen-
dant’s custody or control.
The plaintiffs also rely on Zatkin v. Katz, 126 Conn.
445, 450, 11 A.2d 843 (1940), a case that predates the
Restatement (Second). More specifically, the plaintiffs
argue that Coville, by citing to Zatkin, stands for the
proposition that ‘‘[o]ne who gratuitously undertakes a
service that he has no duty to perform must act with
reasonable care in completing the task assumed.’’
Coville v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., supra, 57 Conn. App.
282. The plaintiffs cite this language in support of their
argument that the defendant voluntarily assumed a duty
to supervise Lamb’s use of the Internet. Zatkin, like
Coville, addressed a challenge to jury instructions con-
cerning claims of negligence against a wrecking com-
pany that loaded a truck whose contents spilled onto
a public road, causing injury. Zatkin v. Katz, supra,
447–48. In Zatkin, our Supreme Court concluded: ‘‘The
jury should have been instructed that if the [wrecking
company defendant], through its servants, loaded the
truck in such manner knowing it was to be operated
upon the highway, it was liable for any injuries of which
its manner of loading was the proximate cause. It would
not affect the liability of the [wrecking company defen-
dant] whether this service was performed gratuitously
or resulted from contract. If, through its servants, it
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caused the truck to be so loaded as to constitute a
nuisance upon the highway, knowing that it was to be
so operated, it could not escape liability for injuries
to users of the highway caused thereby.’’ Id., 449–50.
Although Zatkin establishes a duty to third parties as
a result of the affirmative actions undertaken by a defen-
dant company that created foreseeable risks of harm,
it, too, is inapposite to the present case. Here, the defen-
dant did not engage in any affirmative actions that cre-
ated a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm to the plain-
tiffs by emailing the state police, particularly since she
was unaware of the extent of Lamb’s hacking activities
at that time. See footnotes 18 and 19 of this opinion.
Most pertinent to our analysis is the decision of our
Supreme Court in Demond v. Project Service, LLC, 331
Conn. 816, 208 A.3d 626 (2019), wherein the court con-
sidered the issue of third-party liability in relation to
the Restatement (Second) of Torts and § 324 A, specifi-
cally. In Demond, the defendant company had con-
tracted with the Department of Transportation to main-
tain a service plaza. Id., 820. When an individual, living
out of his vehicle at the service plaza, consumed a large
amount of alcohol and then caused a multivehicle crash
on Interstate 395, the victims brought suit against the
defendant company and other entities that had con-
tracted to maintain and operate the service plaza. Id.,
820, 824 and n.5. In that contract, the defendant com-
pany had agreed not to allow the consumption of alco-
hol or loitering at the service plaza. Id. The victims
alleged, inter alia, that the defendant company had
‘‘breached a duty owed to passing motorists, arising
under § 324A of the Restatement (Second), to protect
them from the increased risk of harm created by the
defendants’ failure to perform their contractual obliga-
tions.’’ Id., 820–21. The defendant company argued that
‘‘[its] contractual undertaking to prohibit loitering and
alcohol consumption at the service plaza did not create
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a duty to third-party motorists injured off the service
plaza premises by a drunk driver who became intoxi-
cated at the service plaza . . . .’’ Id., 822.
In determining whether the defendant company owed
such a duty, our Supreme Court first noted the ‘‘estab-
lished principl[e] of Connecticut negligence law’’ that
‘‘a person typically has no duty of care to protect third
persons from harm caused by a primary tortfeasor, or
to control the conduct of that tortfeasor, unless there
is a special relationship between the defendant and
either the third person or the tortfeasor, or other excep-
tional circumstances exist.’’26 Id., 835–36. Reflecting on
the nature of legal duty, generally, the court remarked
that, ‘‘[d]ue to the increasingly interdependent nature
of our social lives today, in which many institutional
and other caretaking or custodial roles exist as a matter
of course, relationships giving rise to such a duty of
care are not uncommon, but it still is important to keep
in mind that a duty of care does not exist in the air,
and caution must be exercised to ensure that a special
relationship or other factors give rise to such a duty
before negligence liability can be imposed for harm
caused to a third person.’’ Id., 836–37.
In concluding that the defendant had no duty to third-
party motorists, the court nevertheless rejected the
defense theory that the duty arising out of § 324 A of
the Restatement (Second) was strictly circumscribed
by the terms of the underlying contract. Id., 842–43. The
court, however, also rejected the ‘‘pure foreseeability’’
26
As the court in Demond noted, there are situations in which our courts
have recognized a special relationship that can give rise to a duty to third
parties. See Demond v. Project Service, LLC, supra, 331 Conn. 836; see also,
e.g., Doe v. Boy Scouts of America Corp., 323 Conn. 303, 323–25, 147 A.3d
104 (2016) (affirmative duty of care to protect minor participants from sexual
abuse by patrol leader); Murdock v. Croughwell, 268 Conn. 559, 566, 848
A.2d 363 (2004) (special relationship of custody or control may give rise to
duty to protect third person from conduct of another).
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model advanced by the plaintiffs in Demond. Id., 844–45.
It observed that the ‘‘foreseeability reference in § 324A
is not free-floating but instead is anchored to the reason-
able expectations of the undertaking party . . . . [T]he
undertaking party not only will assume duties to third
parties expressly set forth in the contract itself, as well
as pass-through duties owed by the hiring party that
are assigned or transferred to the undertaking party,
but also will assume a duty of care to protect third
parties from foreseeable, physical harm within the
scope of the services to be performed.’’ (Citation omit-
ted; emphasis altered.) Id., 845–46.
Having circumscribed the pure foreseeability analysis
with the requirement that foreseeable harm must be
contemplated by the scope of services rendered, the
court undertook a public policy analysis of the plaintiff’s
claim. In so doing, it emphasized that ‘‘the duty analysis
under § 324A of the Restatement (Second) remains sub-
ject to policy based limitations.’’ Id., 848. The court then
reasoned: ‘‘Because Connecticut common law clearly
establishes a rule of nonliability in this context, the
plaintiffs were required to demonstrate that the parties
to the undertaking had an actual intention to protect
motorists when they included the no alcohol/no loiter-
ing provisions in the [contract]. On this record, no rea-
sonable fact finder could conclude that the parties to
the [contract] had such a specific intent.’’ Id., 853.
Because its analysis of § 324 A of the Restatement
(Second) focused on duty to third parties based on
contract, rather than duty to third parties arising from
a gratuitous promise, Demond affords limited guidance
as applied to this case. While Demond recognized that
§ 324 A expressly contemplates gratuitous undertak-
ings, it did not consider the applicability of the Restatement
(Second) in the context of a general assurance made
to law enforcement, as opposed to a specific promise
that is commercial in nature. Because the plaintiffs have
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provided us with no authority, nor have we found any,
in which a court has applied § 324 A to such general
assurances to law enforcement, we are not persuaded
that the analysis in Demond should control.27
At the same time, we reiterate that Demond under-
scored two principles that remain relevant to our analy-
sis, irrespective of whether § 324 A of the Restatement
(Second) applies; that is, foreseeability of harm and
whether public policy countenances the expansion of
liability to third parties under the circumstances of this
case.28 We reiterate that, ‘‘if it is not foreseeable to a
reasonable person in the defendant’s position that harm
of the type alleged would result from the defendant’s
actions to a particular plaintiff, the question of the exis-
tence of a duty to use due care is foreclosed, and no
cause of action can be maintained by the plaintiff.’’
(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fraser v. United
States, supra, 236 Conn. 633. Here, the defendant issued
a gratuitous, unsolicited series of statements, via email,
27
See, e.g., Gazo v. Stamford, 255 Conn. 245, 250–51, 765 A.2d 505 (2001)
(defendant company that contracted to remove snow had duty of care to
pedestrian plaintiff injured due to negligent performance); Sweeney v.
Friends of Hammonasset, 140 Conn. App. 40, 49, 58 A.3d 293 (2013) (‘‘[§]
324 A does not apply because . . . the plaintiff in the present action does
not allege that the defendants owed him a duty based upon their arrangement
with a third party to render certain services’’ (internal quotation marks
omitted)); Carrico v. Mill Rock Leasing, LLC, 199 Conn. App. 252, 264–65,
235 A.3d 626 (2020) (holding that § 324 A imposed duty of care on defendant
who rendered snow removal services to third party pursuant to agreement
in commercial context); Clay Electric Cooperative, Inc. v. Johnson, 873 So.
2d 1182, 1186 (Fla. 2003) (under § 324 A, commercial electricity provider
assumed duty of care with respect to plaintiffs killed as result of company’s
negligent performance of contract to maintain streetlights).
28
We note that § 324 A of the Restatement (Second) contains two caveats,
the first of which provides that the American Law Institute ‘‘expresses no
opinion as to whether . . . (1) the making of a contract or a gratuitous
promise, without in any way entering upon performance, is a sufficient
undertaking to result in liability under the rule stated in this [s]ection . . . .’’
2 Restatement (Second), supra, § 324 A, caveat (1), p. 142. At times, the
plaintiffs seem to allege that the defendant made promises that she did
not keep.
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that represented to law enforcement both what she had
already done as well as what she was intending to do
in order to prevent future hacking attempts from
occurring through her Internet service provider. We
cannot conclude that a reasonable person in the defen-
dant’s position could foresee that such activity, albeit
inappropriate, would result in the kind of harm alleged
here. Although the defendant admittedly provided Lamb
with a Mac computer and Internet service at the family
home beginning in 2012, there is no genuine issue of
material fact that she did not learn of the defendant’s
hacking activities until sometime in 2015 or 2016; see
footnote 18 of this opinion; and did not learn that he had
stolen photographs of nude females from the hacked
accounts or posted them online until after that conduct
had ceased. In our view, the mere act of providing a
computer or Internet service to an adult child does not
make such criminal conduct reasonably foreseeable.
As the trial court stated at oral argument on the
defendant’s first motion for summary judgment, ‘‘[i]f [a
party such as the defendant] knows what [her son is]
going to do, and . . . he says, I’m gonna go run some-
body over, and she says, here, take the keys to my car.
That’s easy, right? The law can reach out and touch her
for that. But in this instance, she knows that somebody’s
doing something potentially harmful to someone else.
. . . [T]here’s a level of complicity that is lacking here.’’
Noting the contrast to the situation presented by this
case, the court wrote that ‘‘it is not at all foreseeable
that allowing a person to use one’s Internet services
will lead to that individual hacking into another’s social
media accounts in order to obtain intimate pictures to
post on the Internet. The causal connection between
those two activities is simply too attenuated for this
court to determine that the defendant had a duty to
protect [Jane Doe 2] from potential harm.’’ Given the
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pertinent legal principles, applied to the factual sce-
nario presented by this case, we agree with the court’s
determination that Lamb’s actions were not reasonably
foreseeable by the defendant.
B
We next consider whether public policy considera-
tions compel the conclusion that the defendant’s
actions in this case give rise to a duty of care to the
plaintiffs. ‘‘With respect to the second inquiry, namely,
the policy analysis, there generally is no duty that obli-
gates one party to aid or to protect another party. . . .
One exception to this general rule arises when a definite
relationship between the parties is of such a character
that public policy justifies the imposition of a duty to
aid or to protect another.’’ (Citation omitted.) Ryan
Transportation, Inc. v. M & G Associates, 266 Conn.
520, 526, 832 A.2d 1180 (2003). ‘‘In delineating more
precisely the parameters of this limited exception to
the general rule, [our Supreme Court] has concluded
that, [in the absence of] a special relationship of cus-
tody or control, there is no duty to protect a third person
. . . .’’ (Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks
omitted.) Grenier v. Commissioner of Transportation,
supra, 306 Conn. 539–40.
‘‘[I]n considering whether public policy suggests the
imposition of a duty, we . . . consider the following
four factors: (1) the normal expectations of the partici-
pants in the activity under review; (2) the public policy
of encouraging participation in the activity, while
weighing the safety of the participants; (3) the avoid-
ance of increased litigation; and (4) the decisions of
other jurisdictions.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Ruiz v. Victory Properties, LLC, supra, 315 Conn.
337.
In Ryan Transportation, Inc., our Supreme Court
rejected a theory that cotenants have a special relation-
ship that gives rise to a duty to protect against injuries
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to a fellow tenant, noting that, ‘‘under certain circum-
stances, landlords may have a duty to take affirmative
action to protect tenants and their guests from the crimi-
nal conduct of third parties’’ but that this duty does not
extend to cotenants. Ryan Transportation, Inc. v. M &
G Associates, supra, 266 Conn. 527; id. (duty of landlord
is ‘‘limited to areas of the leasehold over which the
landlord has exclusive control or to situations in which
the landlord has the exclusive ability to prevent the
unlawful conduct’’). The scenario presented in Ryan
Transportation, Inc., involved two commercial tenants
of a property, one of which had knowledge of an arson
attempt on the property the day before an unknown
arsonist successfully destroyed the entire building. Id.,
523. The court upheld the granting of summary judg-
ment in that case, noting that there was nothing in
the record to suggest that the party granted summary
judgment exercised any control or superior ability to
protect the other tenant of the property. See id., 528;
see also Gomes v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 258
Conn. 603, 616, 783 A.2d 462 (2001) (concluding that
no duty existed where there was ‘‘no overriding public
policy or statute that compels [the] court to extend
liability based on the facts of the present case’’).
The plaintiffs argue that ‘‘[c]onsiderations of public
policy weigh strongly in favor of recognizing the defen-
dant’s duty in these circumstances’’ because there is a
general interest in reporting and preventing criminal
activity. Pointing to statutes that criminalize misuse of
computers, as well as prohibitions against ‘‘cyberbully-
ing,’’ the plaintiffs urge us to expand our common-law
framework, adapting it to the modern computer age.
The plaintiffs further argue that the four factors we
must deploy in analyzing the facts of this case—(1) the
normal expectations of the participants in the activity
under review; (2) the public policy of encouraging par-
ticipation in the activity, while weighing the safety of
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the participants; (3) the avoidance of increased litiga-
tion; and (4) the decisions of courts in other jurisdic-
tions—all weigh in favor of recognizing a duty on the
part of the defendant in this case. The defendant count-
ers that imposing a duty of care on her would violate
public policy by ‘‘exposing individuals responsible for
maintaining an Internet connection to liability for the
intentional criminal conduct of one who uses an elec-
tronic device to access that Internet connection.’’
First, the normal expectations of the parties, under
the facts of this case, weigh against establishing a duty
of care. There are strong presumptions against impos-
ing liability on a parent for an adult child’s acts.29 ‘‘At
common law, the torts of children do not impose vicari-
ous liability upon parents qua parents, although paren-
tal liability may be created by statute; see General Stat-
utes § 52-572; or by independently negligent behavior
on the part of parents.’’ (Footnote omitted.) Kaminski
v. Fairfield, 216 Conn. 29, 34, 578 A.2d 1048 (1990);
Adams v. Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Co., 215 Conn.
App. 428, 442 n.9, 283 A.3d 42 (‘‘[a]lthough parents are
deemed to have a special relationship with their minor
children from which a duty of care to them and others
may arise . . . with limited exceptions . . . no such
duty exists between parents and their emancipated
adult children’’ (citation omitted; emphasis in original)),
cert. denied, 345 Conn. 970, 286 A.3d 448 (2022). Few
adults would likely expect to be held liable for such
activity on the part of their adult child. Relatedly, there
is a strong public policy interest in maintaining wide-
spread access to the Internet. Requiring that a person
who provides Internet service to other adults be held
responsible for the criminal misuse of that service does
29
We emphasize that the specific claim raised in this appeal is not confined
to the familial context. Because the facts of this case arose in the context
of a parental relationship, we simply note certain well established precepts
regarding liability in that context.
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not, it seems to us, fall within the normal expectations
of individuals in Connecticut.
Second, any benefit that might accrue from recogniz-
ing a public policy of encouraging parents to monitor
their adult children’s Internet usage under such circum-
stances cannot be counterbalanced by the practical dif-
ficulties inherent in taking on such a task. For example,
where a user of the Internet has more knowledge than
the owner of the electronic devices or Internet service,
hiding criminal activity is likely to be fairly simple, and
detection unlikely.
Third, were we to conclude that there is a duty of
care owed to the plaintiffs on the facts of this case,
there can be little doubt that recognizing a duty under
these circumstances would increase litigation. The
plaintiffs argue that they are seeking the ‘‘application
of established legal principles’’ rather than novel causes
of action. According to this logic, this case would not
‘‘open the door to an entirely new category of claims
. . . .’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) We disagree
with this assumption. As demonstrated by the foregoing
discussion, the plaintiffs ask us to adapt common-law
principles to a modern scenario—going beyond the cur-
rent state of the law toward something new. The risk
of creating additional litigation is very high in such an
endeavor. As the defendant points out, and as we have
already stated, the plaintiffs’ argument leads to the pos-
sibility that anyone who purchases and controls an
Internet connection could theoretically become liable
for damages to a third party that are caused by the
criminal activity of another person who uses that
Internet access.30
30
The plaintiffs argue that the present matter is ‘‘sui generis’’ in that the
‘‘underlying conduct occurred nearly a decade ago, well before Wi-Fi Internet
grew to become accessible in public places, including supermarkets, coffee
shops, restaurants, arenas, theaters, and numerous other locations that are
openly accessible. . . . Back then, Lamb was dependent upon both the
defendant’s Internet connection, and the devices she controlled, in order
to access the Internet and deploy the hacking scheme. . . . Because modern
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Last, the decisions of courts in other jurisdictions
also inform our analysis. The plaintiffs argue that New
Jersey courts ‘‘recognized and applied a duty to monitor
Internet usage’’ in Doe v. XYC Corp., 382 N.J. Super.
122, 887 A.2d 1156 (App. Div. 2005). XYC Corp. involved
an employer that had actual or imputed knowledge that
an employee was viewing child pornography material
on his work computer. See id., 140. The Appellate Divi-
sion of the Superior Court of New Jersey concluded
that the employer had a duty to act by either terminating
the employee or reporting his criminal activity to law
enforcement—or both. See id. The court grounded its
conclusion on public policy concerns. Under New Jer-
sey law, whether public policy imposes a duty hinges
on whether the imposition of a duty ‘‘satisfies an abiding
sense of basic fairness under all of the circumstances
in light of considerations of public policy.’’ Id., 140–41.
Specifically, the public policy analysis involves, ‘‘identi-
fying, weighing, and balancing several factors—the rela-
tionship of the parties, the nature of the attendant risk,
the opportunity and ability to exercise care, and the
public interest in the proposed solution.’’ Id., 141. Not-
ing the fact that public policy clearly favors exposing
and penalizing crimes such as child pornography, the
court also considered the Restatement (Second) of
Torts. See id., 141–42. Because the matter involved an
technology would allow for Internet access in numerous locations outside
of one’s residence, the fact pattern presented in this case would not arise
today. . . . Since the circumstances dictate that this is a singular case,
no increased litigation will result from recognizing a duty in this specific
instance.’’ (Citations omitted.) We disagree with that contention. Residential
Internet service is commonplace in the United States. See, e.g., Ashcroft v.
American Civil Liberties Union, 535 U.S. 564, 567, 122 S. Ct. 1700, 152 L.
Ed. 2d 771 (2002) (‘‘access to the Internet is widely available in homes . . .
across the country’’). The fact that ‘‘Internet access is [also] widely available
at locations other than one’s home’’; United States v. Miller, 665 F.3d 114,
133 (5th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 567 U.S. 918, 132 S. Ct. 2773, 183 L. Ed. 2d
643 (2012); does not convince us that criminal hacking activity like that at
issue in this case is unlikely to occur through residential Internet service.
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employer-employee relationship, the court relied in part
on § 317 and determined that the employer had a duty,
under that provision of the Restatement (Second) as
well as under New Jersey law, to ‘‘control’’ its employee
when that employee is ‘‘acting outside the scope of his
employment’’ in order to ‘‘prevent the [employee] from
intentionally harming others or from so conducting him-
self as to create an unreasonable risk of bodily harm to
[others].’’31 (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 141.

XYC Corp. is thus readily distinguishable from the
present scenario. The court in that case imposed a duty
on an employer that had actual or imputed knowledge
of an employee’s criminal conduct. The employer-
employee relationship is a unique one—having roots in
different areas of the common law and giving rise to
different provisions of the Restatement (Second).
Broadly, the plaintiffs are correct that XYC Corp. stands
for the proposition that ‘‘a defendant can undertake an
obligation to monitor the activities of another which
will give rise to a duty to act to prevent harm to others.’’
We cannot, however, agree with the plaintiffs that the
defendant in this case ‘‘took on a policy’’ of supervising
Lamb that is analogous to an employer who undertakes
to supervise employees while they perform their job
duties. Put simply, there is no special relationship akin
to that of employer-employee that would give rise to a
similar duty under the facts of this case.
31
Section 317 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts provides: ‘‘A master
is under a duty to exercise reasonable care so to control his servant while
acting outside the scope of his employment as to prevent him from intention-
ally harming others or from so conducting himself as to create an unreason-
able risk of bodily harm to them, if (a) the servant (i) is upon the premises
in possession of the master or upon which the servant is privileged to enter
only as his servant, or (ii) is using a chattel of the master, and (b) the master
(i) knows or has reason to know that he has the ability to control his
servant, and (ii) knows or should know of the necessity and opportunity
for exercising such control.’’ 2 Restatement (Second), supra, § 317, p. 125.
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The plaintiffs also look to a California appellate court
decision to buttress their argument that we should rec-
ognize a duty arising out of the defendant’s conduct.
In another tragic case, family members of the victims
of a nineteen year old shooter who lived with his parents
appealed from the granting of summary judgment ren-
dered in favor of the parents in a negligence action the
family members had brought against the parents. See
Smith v. Freund, 192 Cal. App. 4th 466, 121 Cal. Rptr.
3d 427 (2011), review denied, California Supreme Court,
Docket No. S191439 (May 11, 2011). The California
Court of Appeal held that the parents did not owe a
duty to third parties because the shooter’s violent acts
were not foreseeable. Although the shooter had signifi-
cant mental health related issues, he had no violent
history toward third parties prior to the shooting. Id.,
474–75. Noting that the family members had claimed
that a special relationship between the parents and the
shooter was the basis of the purported duty, the court
stated that, ‘‘[w]hen deciding whether a duty of care
arose from a special relationship, a court should con-
sider pertinent factors, including foreseeability of harm
to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff
suffered injury, the closeness of the connection
between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suf-
fered, the moral blame attached to the defendant’s con-
duct, the policy of preventing future harm, 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, and the availability, cost,
and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.’’
(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 473. The family
members contended that the parents had undertaken
a duty to monitor the shooter’s medication usage, in
part, to protect third parties, under § 324 A of the
Restatement (Second).32 Id., 473 n.4.
32
We note that the court in Freund concluded the public policy analysis
by stating that ‘‘[a]ny connection between [the parents’] conduct and the
shootings is speculative. [The parents’] conduct amounted to this: [T]hey
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The plaintiffs argue that, unlike the parents of the
shooter in Freund, the defendant had ‘‘learned directly
from Lamb that he had engaged in multiple instances
of illegal conduct that had been reported to the defen-
dant by the state police.’’ Acknowledging that foresee-
ability was absent in Freund, the plaintiffs argue that
‘‘the defendant had every reason to know that the moni-
toring services she had agreed to perform were directly
tailored to Lamb’s admitted misconduct and the harm
that would result when he resumed hacking after realiz-
ing that the defendant’s monitoring efforts were defi-
cient.’’ Important to our analysis, however, is the fact
that the plaintiffs, in opposing the motions for summary
judgment, submitted no evidence indicating that the
extent of Lamb’s activity, as well as its precise nature,
was known to the defendant. See Smith v. Freund,
supra, 192 Cal. App. 4th 473; see also Regions Bank v.
Joyce Meyer Ministries, Inc., 15 N.E.3d 545, 549 (Ill.
App.) (‘‘[i]n Illinois, [the voluntary undertaking excep-
tion] has been narrowly construed and duty imposed
is limited by the extent of the undertaking’’), appeal
denied, 21 N.E.3d 718 (2014).

In light of the foregoing analysis as to the foreseeabil-
ity of Lamb’s conduct, in combination with the public
policy interests that weigh against the imposition of
a legal duty, the plaintiffs’ claim that the defendant
allowed [the shooter] to live in their home, attended therapy sessions with
him, monitored his medicine compliance, and reported to the doctors as
requested. To impose a duty of care on [the parents] could cause greater
harm in future cases by encouraging parents to disassociate from their adult
children with chronic serious problems.’’ Smith v. Freund, supra, 192 Cal.
App. 4th 475. The defendant in the present case is similarly situated—having
provided Internet access and food and lodging to her adult son who was
clearly struggling. Although the defendant did have actual knowledge, at
some point in 2015 or 2016; see footnote 18 of this opinion; that Lamb had
engaged in ‘‘hacking,’’ the trial court concluded, and we agree, that such
knowledge did not make the entirety of his subsequent criminal activity
foreseeable.
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voluntarily assumed a duty of care to the plaintiffs
must fail.
II
The plaintiffs next claim that the defendant owed a
general duty of care, ‘‘stemming from her affirmative
conduct,’’ such that the trial court improperly granted
the first and second motions for summary judgment.
According to the plaintiffs, the defendant’s actions were
an attempt at ‘‘placating law enforcement with promises
of ongoing monitoring and supervision,’’ which she then
followed through with ‘‘in a profoundly unsatisfactory
way.’’33 Similar to the plaintiffs’ first claim discussed in
part I of this opinion, the core guiding principle in a
general duty analysis has always been whether the spe-
cific harm alleged was foreseeable by the defendant.
33
Relatedly, the plaintiffs also argue that ‘‘[l]iability can be incurred where,
as here, ‘the risk created by the defendant’s negligence included the hazard
that the defendant’s conduct would induce a third party to commit such an
act.’ See Snell v. Norwalk Yellow Cab, Inc., 332 Conn. 720, [760], 212 A.3d
646 (2019).’’ In Snell, our Supreme Court determined that the superseding
cause doctrine applies to criminally reckless conduct, affirming this court’s
determination that the trial court had correctly applied the doctrine of
superseding cause. See id., 724. The facts in Snell were as follows: A taxicab
driver left his keys in his unlocked vehicle, and two teenagers took the
taxicab on a ‘‘ ‘joyride.’ ’’ The taxicab collided with another vehicle before
striking and injuring the plaintiff, a pedestrian, after which the teenagers
attempted to flee the scene. Id., 724–25. Our Supreme Court explained
that ‘‘the superseding cause doctrine has been applied historically to any
independent, intervening force that a defendant claims was the sole proxi-
mate cause of a plaintiff’s injury.’’ Id., 753. In Snell, the parties did not
dispute the existence of a duty, arguing only the issue of causality. Id., 743.
As our Supreme Court explained, however, ‘‘when a defendant claims that
an independent intervening force superseded his own negligence, the ques-
tion of legal causation is practically indistinguishable from an analysis of
the extent of the tortfeasor’s duty to the plaintiff.’’ (Internal quotation marks
omitted.) Id., 743 n.9. In determining whether a duty exists, ‘‘our threshold
inquiry has always been whether the specific harm alleged by the plaintiff
was foreseeable to the defendant . . . which is the same inquiry a jury
makes in deciding whether a defendant’s actions were the proximate cause
of the harm.’’ (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. This
argument, then, merges with the broader argument raised by the plaintiffs
with respect to the issue of foreseeability.
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In support of their contention that the defendant owed
a general duty of care, the plaintiffs rely on §§ 302, 302
B and 449 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, as well
as Doe v. Saint Francis Hospital & Medical Center,
309 Conn. 146, 72 A.3d 929 (2013). The plaintiffs argue
that the defendant’s affirmative actions ‘‘encouraged
Lamb to resume this harmful conduct,’’ which brought
the harms suffered by the plaintiffs within the scope
of the risk created by the defendant’s negligent con-
duct.34 The plaintiffs also contend that public policy
demands accountability for the defendant’s actions
‘‘under the unique facts of this case.’’
The defendant does not address the plaintiffs’ argu-
ment that §§ 302, 302 B and 449 of the Restatement
(Second) are applicable to the facts of this case, nor
does she argue the applicable case law with respect to
these provisions. The defendant simply contends that
the plaintiffs’ attempt to ‘‘extend a duty to a third party
based on the intentional criminal acts of another’’ has
‘‘no basis in law or public policy . . . .’’ We agree with
the defendant.
As an initial matter, we note that the plaintiffs
acknowledge that their argument, like their previous
claim addressed in part I of this opinion, ‘‘is not suscep-
tible to a universal test,’’ and the ‘‘primary consider-
ation’’ is whether the specific harm alleged was foresee-
able by the defendant with the ‘‘second’’ question being
whether public policy should impose responsibility on
the defendant for her allegedly negligent conduct. This
claim, then, follows the same analytical framework as
34
The plaintiffs contend, more specifically, that the trial court improperly
rendered summary judgment on counts ten, twenty-two, thirty-four, and
forty-six of their operative complaint. These claims pertain to the defendant’s
supervision of Lamb, alleging that the defendant knew or should have known
that Lamb was engaged in hacking activities with respect to each of the
plaintiffs, and that she knew or should have known that Lamb was not
competent enough to be left unsupervised with access to the Internet.
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the first claim. Accordingly, we incorporate much of
our analysis with respect to both the foreseeability of
Lamb’s actions as well as the public policy interests at
play in our evaluation of the propriety of expanding the
law to create a novel duty.
A
We first consider the question of whether Lamb’s
criminal actions were reasonably foreseeable by the
defendant. The following legal principles are relevant
to the plaintiffs’ claim. A general duty analysis begins
with asking whether an ordinary person in the defen-
dant’s position, knowing what the defendant knew or
should have known, would anticipate that harm of the
general nature as that suffered by the plaintiff was likely
to result. See, e.g., Ruiz v. Victory Properties, LLC,
supra, 315 Conn. 328–29. ‘‘The idea of risk in this context
necessarily involves a recognizable danger, based upon
some knowledge of the existing facts, and some reason-
able belief that harm may possibly follow. . . . Accord-
ingly, the fact finder must consider whether the defen-
dant knew, or should have known, that the situation at
hand would obviously and naturally, even though not
necessarily, expose [the plaintiff] to probable injury
unless preventive measures were taken.’’ (Citations
omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) LePage v.
Horne, 262 Conn. 116, 124, 809 A.2d 505 (2002).
Titled ‘‘risk of direct or indirect harm,’’ § 302 of the
Restatement (Second) provides that ‘‘[a] negligent act
or omission may be one which involves an unreasonable
risk of harm to another through either (a) the continu-
ous operation of a force started or continued by the
act or omission, or (b) the foreseeable action of the
other, a third person, an animal, or a force of nature.’’
2 Restatement (Second), supra, § 302, p. 82. As its com-
mentary makes clear, this section is ‘‘concerned only
with the negligent character of the actor’s conduct, and
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not with his duty to avoid the unreasonable risk.’’ Id.,
comment (a). Most importantly, ‘‘[i]f the actor is under
no duty to the other to act, his failure to do so may be
negligent conduct within the rule stated in this [s]ection,
but it does not subject him to liability, because of the
absence of duty.’’ Id.
Section 302 B provides that ‘‘[a]n act or an omission
may be negligent if the actor realizes or should realize
that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to another
through the conduct of the other or a third person which
is intended to cause harm, even though such conduct
is criminal.’’ 2 Restatement (Second), supra, § 302 B,
p. 88. As comment (d) to § 302 B explains, ‘‘[n]ormally
the actor has much less reason to anticipate intentional
misconduct than he has to anticipate negligence. In the
ordinary case he may reasonably proceed upon the
assumption that others will not interfere in a manner
intended to cause harm to anyone. This is true particu-
larly where the intentional conduct is a crime, since
under ordinary circumstances it may reasonably be
assumed that no one will violate the criminal law. Even
where there is a recognizable possibility of the inten-
tional interference, the possibility may be so slight, or
there may be so slight a risk of foreseeable harm to
another as a result of the interference, that a reasonable
man in the position of the actor would disregard it.’’35
Id., comment (d), p. 89.
The plaintiffs also rely on § 449, which provides, ‘‘[i]f
the likelihood that a third person may act in a particular
35
As our Supreme Court has stated, ‘‘[b]ecause §§ 302 B and 449 of the
Restatement (Second) are closely related, the comments to § 449 expressly
direct that that section is to be read in conjunction with § 302 B. See 2
Restatement (Second), supra, § 449, comment (a), p. 482 (‘[t]his [s]ection
should be read together with § 302 B, and the [c]omments to that [s]ection,
which deal with the foreseeable likelihood of the intentional or even criminal
misconduct of a third person as a hazard which makes the actor’s conduct
negligent’).’’ Doe v. Saint Francis Hospital & Medical Center, supra, 309
Conn. 175 n.21.
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manner is the hazard or one of the hazards which makes
the actor negligent, such an act whether innocent, negli-
gent, intentionally tortious, or criminal does not prevent
the actor from being liable for harm caused thereby.’’ 2
Restatement (Second), supra, § 449, p. 482. As comment
(a) to § 449 makes clear, ‘‘[t]his [s]ection should be
read together with § 302 B, and the [c]omments to that
[s]ection, which deal with the foreseeable likelihood of
the intentional or even criminal misconduct of a third
person as a hazard which makes the actor’s conduct
negligent. As is there stated, the mere possibility or
even likelihood that there may be such misconduct is
not in all cases sufficient to characterize the actor’s
conduct as negligence. It is only where the actor is
under a duty to the other, because of some relation
between them, to protect him against such misconduct,
or where the actor has undertaken the obligation of
doing so, or his conduct has created or increased the
risk of harm through the misconduct, that he becomes
negligent.’’ (Emphasis added.) Id., comment (a), pp.
482–83.36
As our Supreme Court has observed, ‘‘[a]n exception
to the general rule that one has no legal obligation to
36
As the commentary to these two rules makes clear, the rules are focused
on the negligent character of an actor’s conduct—not the duty to avoid
unreasonable risk. Comment (a) to § 302 provides, additionally, that, ‘‘[i]n
general, anyone who does an affirmative act is under a duty to others to
exercise the care of a reasonable man to protect them against an unreason-
able risk of harm to them arising out of the act. The duties of one who
merely omits to act are more restricted, and in general are confined to
situations where there is a special relation between the actor and the other
which gives rise to the duty. As to the distinction between act and omission,
or ‘misfeasance’ and ‘non-feasance,’ see § 314 and [c]omments. If the actor
is under no duty to the other to act, his failure to do so may be negligent
conduct within the rule stated in this [s]ection, but it does not subject him
to liability, because of the absence of duty.’’ 2 Restatement (Second), supra,
§ 302, comment (a), p. 82. The commentary to § 302 B similarly notes that
‘‘[t]his section is a special application of the rule stated in [c]lause (b)
of § 302. Comment [(a)] to that [s]ection is equally applicable here.’’ 2
Restatement (Second), supra, § 302 B, comment (a), p. 89.
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protect another may arise when the defendant’s own
conduct creates or increases the foreseeable risk that
such other person will be harmed by the conduct of a
third party, including the foreseeable criminal conduct
of that third party. . . . [T]his exception . . . is set
forth in §§ 302 B and 449 of the Restatement (Second)
[of Torts] . . . .’’ (Footnote omitted.) Doe v. Saint
Francis Hospital & Medical Center, supra, 309 Conn.
175–76. The issue in that case was the duty that a hospi-
tal undertakes with regard to children who are under
its care. Our Supreme Court explained that, as a general
matter, Connecticut law does not require a defendant
to ‘‘anticipat[e] the intentional misconduct of a third
party . . . unless the defendant knows or has reason
to know of the third party’s criminal propensity. The
criminal misconduct of a third party may be foreseeable
under the facts of a particular case, however, without
a showing that the defendant had such actual or con-
structive knowledge of the third party’s criminal pro-
pensity. . . . [W]hen a defendant’s conduct creates or
increases the risk of a particular harm and is a substan-
tial factor in causing that harm, or when the defendant
otherwise has a legally cognizable duty to aid or protect
another person, the fact that the harm is brought about
by the actions of a third party does not relieve the
defendant of liability, even though the third party’s
conduct is criminal, if the harm that occurred is within
the scope of the risk created by the defendant’s conduct
or reasonably could have been anticipated in light of
the defendant’s duty to protect. Thus, when the harm
resulting from the criminal misconduct of a third party
is foreseeable in view of the facts and circumstances
presented, there is no reason why the injured party
should nevertheless be required to establish that the
defendant had actual or constructive knowledge of the
third party’s criminal propensity.’’ (Citation omitted;
emphasis in original.) Id., 172–73. In other words, ‘‘proof
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of actual or constructive knowledge of propensity is
but one way to establish that the criminal misconduct
of the third party was foreseeable.’’ Id., 173; see also
Doe v. Hartford Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp., 317
Conn. 357, 379, 119 A.3d 462 (2015) (upholding jury
verdict finding that religious organization negligently
supervised priest who had known propensity to engage
in molestation of children).37
The plaintiffs argue that there is at least a genuine
issue of material fact with respect to whether the defen-
dant had actual or constructive knowledge of the partic-
ular conduct at issue here, specifically the full scope
of Lamb’s criminal activity against these particular
plaintiffs. They contend that the defendant’s own affir-
mative conduct created or increased the risk of the
particular harms that they suffered, and that the defen-
dant’s conduct was a substantial factor in causing that
harm. The plaintiffs argue that the defendant’s ‘‘affirma-
tive acts’’ in the aftermath of the state police visit to
her home—namely, her assurance to the police that she
would supervise Lamb’s use of electronic devices and
Internet services—gave rise to a duty of care that she
owed to the plaintiffs and other similarly situated vic-
tims.38
37
Our Supreme Court has addressed whether a psychotherapist has a
duty to exercise control to prevent an outpatient—who was known to be
dangerous—from ‘‘inflicting bodily harm on a victim who was neither readily
identifiable nor within a foreseeable class of victims.’’ Fraser v. United
States, supra, 236 Conn. 630. In concluding that the psychotherapist did not
have a duty to exercise control over the outpatient, the court offered four
reasons for this conclusion: (1) precedent did not establish a duty to unidenti-
fiable victims; (2) related areas of the common law did not impose a duty
to unidentifiable victims; (3) policy reasons specific to the relationship
between a therapist and a patient cautioned against imposing such a duty
of control; (4) the decisions of courts in other jurisdictions have declined
to extend such a duty to unidentifiable third parties. See id., 632. Much of
the reasoning of Fraser applies to the present case as well, because the
plaintiffs were not identifiable to the defendant.
38
The plaintiffs argue that the trial court’s determination that the defendant
and Lamb did not have a special relationship that would support the imposi-
tion of a duty ‘‘misses the reality that the defendant owed a duty of care
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In support of these contentions, the plaintiffs point
to comment (f) to § 302 B of the Restatement (Second)
of Torts. Comment (f) provides: ‘‘It is not possible to
state definite rules as to when the actor is required to
take precautions against intentional or criminal miscon-
duct. As in other cases of negligence . . . it is a matter
of balancing the magnitude of the risk against the utility
of the actor’s conduct. Factors to be considered are
the known character, past conduct, and tendencies of
the person whose intentional conduct causes the harm,
the temptation or opportunity which the situation may
afford him for such misconduct, the gravity of the harm
which may result, and the possibility that some other
person will assume the responsibility for preventing the
conduct or the harm, together with the burden of the
precautions which the actor would be required to take.
Where the risk is relatively slight in comparison with
the utility of the actor’s conduct, he may be under no
obligation to protect the other against it.’’ (Citation
omitted.) 2 Restatement (Second), supra, § 302 B, com-
ment (f), p. 93.
We acknowledge that the harm perpetrated on the
plaintiffs in this case was extreme—but the gravity of
the harm is not the only factor that we are required to
consider. With respect to whether the defendant was
aware of Lamb’s ‘‘ ‘past conduct,’ ’’ the plaintiffs argue
that, because Lamb had admitted to the defendant that
he had engaged in hacking activities following the police
visit in 2015, she therefore ‘‘easily was aware’’ that Lamb
would have the ‘‘ ‘temptation [and] opportunity’ ’’ to
resulting from her own ‘affirmative conduct’ in hiding Lamb’s illegal hacking
under the guise of her ongoing monitoring and supervision.’’ Citing to the
various provisions of the Restatement discussed previously in part II of this
opinion, the plaintiffs then argue that the defendant ‘‘may be liable for the
intentional conduct of a third person when such acts are ‘within the scope
of the risk created by the [defendant’s] conduct.’ ’’ The plaintiffs further
reference Doe v. Saint Francis Hospital & Medical Center, supra, 309 Conn.
146, in support of this proposition.
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engage in the same behavior. Although it is true that
Lamb admitted engaging in such conduct to the defen-
dant, there also is no evidence in the materials submit-
ted in connection with the motions for summary judg-
ment that the defendant was aware that Lamb had
stolen photographs of nude females from the hacked
accounts or posted them online until after that conduct
had ceased.39 As Lamb stated in his January 3, 2019
statement to the police: ‘‘I didn’t . . . go into detail of
what I was doing. I don’t think [the defendant] . . .
she didn’t quite get what I was doing. I think that she
thought, you know, I kind of tried to get into someone’s
account for whatever reason or whatever, and then
[she said] don’t do it again. . . . [She was] clearly mad,
disappointed at me . . . but I don’t think—because I
didn’t really explain it very well.’’ Lamb also told the
police that, in retrospect, he ‘‘could have said more,
gone into detail a little bit more of what [he] was doing
so [the defendant] had a better understanding that . . .
this wasn’t, like, a small thing . . . .’’ Under those par-
ticular facts, which the plaintiffs have provided no evi-
dentiary basis to dispute, we reject the plaintiffs’ con-
tention that the defendant possessed knowledge that
Lamb would be tempted or provided an opportunity
for further misconduct of the kind that ultimately was
discovered.
The plaintiffs also argue that the defendant ‘‘knew
that no other party would assume the responsibility for
preventing the misconduct.’’ We cannot agree that the
defendant knew that no one else would assume the
responsibility for preventing Lamb’s misconduct when
her home had been visited by the state police—who
39
Lamb stated that he did not tell the defendant that he needed help
‘‘because she didn’t quite get what I was doing. I think that she thought,
you know, I kind of tried to get into someone’s account for whatever reason
. . . . [I]t’s like, you know, don’t do it again. . . . [The defendant was]
clearly mad, disappointed at me and stuff . . . .’’
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were investigating the misconduct. Under these circum-
stances, and in the absence of any evidence that the
defendant knew that Lamb had a known history of
criminal computer use, we are not convinced that the
defendant owed a duty to the plaintiffs under comment
(f) to § 302 B of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.
We also are not persuaded that the defendant, in
voluntarily undertaking to monitor Lamb’s computer
related activities, increased the likelihood of harm to
the plaintiffs. As the Supreme Court of Alabama stated
when interpreting the scope of § 324 A of the Restatement
(Second), the ‘‘test is not whether the risk was increased
over what it would have been if the defendant had not
been negligent. Rather, a duty is imposed only if the
risk is increased over what it would have been had the
defendant not engaged in the undertaking at all. . . .
Liability can be imposed on one who voluntarily under-
took the duty to act only where the actor affirmatively
either made, or caused to be made, a change in the
conditions which change created or increased the risk
of harm to the plaintiff. . . . See also Patentas v.
United States, 687 F.2d 707, 717 (3d Cir. 1982) (. . .
comment [c] to section 324A makes clear that increased
risk means some physical change to the environment or
some other material alteration of circumstances . . .).’’
(Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.)
Yanmar America Corp. v. Nichols, 166 So. 3d 70, 84–85
(Ala. 2014). In Yanmar America Corp., the Alabama
Supreme Court held that a company that had issued
nonspecific safety warnings had not increased the risk
to the operators of a defective tractor because the warn-
ings by the company, even if deficient, never actually
reached the operators. Id., 85–86; see also Thompson v.
Bohlken, 312 N.W.2d 501, 508 (Iowa 1981) (gratuitously
inspecting premises and failing to note hazardous condi-
tions did not impose liability under § 324 A because
such conduct did not increase risk to injured parties).
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Here, the plaintiffs were not in a worse position by
virtue of the mere fact that the defendant sent various
emails to Pritchard. Although Pritchard informed the
defendant in 2015 that hacking attempts had originated
from her home Internet service and Lamb subsequently
admitted to her that he had engaged in hacking activi-
ties, it also is undisputed that the defendant did not
learn of Lamb’s criminal activity in stealing photographs
of nude females and posting them online until the police
executed a search warrant in September, 2017. See foot-
note 19 of this opinion. Moreover, following the defen-
dant’s email correspondence with Pritchard, Lamb
ceased his activities for ‘‘a few months . . . .’’ When
he later resumed his hacking activities, Lamb went right
back to doing what he had been doing—but he did not
increase the harm caused to the plaintiffs because of
any actions on the part of the defendant. As a result,
we do not agree that the defendant’s conduct, by itself,
increased the risk of the harm endured by the plaintiffs
in this case.
Our Supreme Court wrestled with the issue of fore-
seeability in Lodge v. Arett Sales Corp., 246 Conn. 563,
717 A.2d 215 (1998). The court was confronted with a
case involving a negligently caused fire alarm. Id., 567–
68. Responding to that alarm, two firefighters were
killed and others suffered injuries when the braking
mechanism failed on the fire truck in which they were
traveling. Id., 567. The parties argued for differing inter-
pretations of what the scope of foreseeability means in
negligence actions. Id., 573–74. Writing for the majority,
Chief Justice Callahan stated that ‘‘[w]e agree with the
defendants that the analysis of foreseeability logically
cannot be extended so far that the term ‘general harm’
incorporates any accident involving a fire engine
responding to a false alarm with no consideration given
to the direct cause of the accident. It is impractical, if
not impossible, to separate the question of duty from
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an analysis of the cause of the harm when the duty is
asserted against one who is not the direct cause of the
harm.’’ Id., 574. The court also cited approvingly to a
popular treatise, noting that ‘‘ ‘[t]he question whether
there is a duty has most often seemed helpful in cases
where the only issue is in reality whether the defendant
stands in any such relation to the plaintiff as to create
any legally recognized obligation of conduct for the
plaintiff’s benefit. Or, reverting again to the starting
point, whether the interests of the plaintiff are entitled
to legal protection at the defendant’s hands against the
invasion which has in fact occurred. Or, again reverting,
whether the conduct is the ‘proximate cause’ of the
result. The circumlocution is unavoidable, since all of
these questions are, in reality, one and the same.’ ’’ Id.,
574–75 n.9, citing W. Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton
on the Law of Torts (5th Ed. 1984) § 42, p. 274.
Although the plaintiffs do not rely on § 442 B of the
Restatement (Second) of Torts in support of their claim
that the defendant owed a general duty of care as a
result of her affirmative conduct, that provision is
instructive on the issue of intentional conduct by a third
party.40 In Snell v. Norwalk Yellow Cab, Inc., 332 Conn.
720, 759 n.18, 212 A.3d 646 (2019), our Supreme Court
summarized the factual scenario present in Ruiz v. Vic-
tory Properties, LLC, supra, 315 Conn. 320, as an ‘‘apt
example’’ of the principle set forth in § 442 B: ‘‘In Ruiz,
a small child was injured when an older child uninten-
tionally dropped a piece of concrete on her head from
40
There is a strong relationship between various provisions of the
Restatement (Second). As our Supreme Court has iterated: ‘‘[A]lthough
§§ 302 B, 448 and 449 of the Restatement (Second) delineate when a defen-
dant may be liable for a third party’s intentionally harmful acts, those sections
merely reiterate the principle set forth in §§ 442 B and 435 (1), which is the
same principle that governs every section of the Restatement (Second) of
Torts relating to proximate causation: liability will attach if the defendant
knew or should have known that his conduct created or increased the risk
that the third party would act in such a manner.’’ Snell v. Norwalk Yellow
Cab, Inc., 332 Conn. 720, 761, 212 A.3d 646 (2019).
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the third floor landing of the apartment building where
the children resided. . . . The older child had obtained
the concrete from the backyard of that apartment build-
ing, where he and the victim had been playing. . . .
The trial court granted the defendant landlord’s motion
for summary judgment, concluding that the defendant
owed the victim no duty of care because no reasonable
juror could find that her injuries were a foreseeable
consequence of the defendant’s [failure to maintain the
property in a clean and safe condition by leaving loose
pieces of concrete in the backyard] and because impos-
ing liability on the defendant would be contrary to over-
riding public policy considerations. . . . The Appellate
Court reversed the judgment of the trial court, and we
affirmed the Appellate Court’s judgment . . .
explaining that the defendant does not dispute that the
risk of harm created by its failure to remove the buckets,
trash, broken concrete pieces and other debris from
the backyard was that children playing in the area might
trip on them or throw them at other children. The types
of injuries one would expect to result from this type
of behavior run the gamut from cuts and bruises to
broken bones, concussions and even fractured skulls.
[The child’s] injuries, although severe, fall squarely
along this continuum of harm. That they occurred in
an unusual manner, namely, by a child dropping a piece
of concrete into the backyard playground from a third
floor balcony instead of throwing it while in the back-
yard, does not alter this fundamental fact. We therefore
agree with the Appellate Court that [the child’s] injuries
were sufficiently foreseeable that it was inappropriate
for the trial court to foreclose the foreseeability ques-
tion as a matter of law.’’ (Citations omitted; internal
quotation marks omitted.) Snell v. Norwalk Yellow Cab,
Inc., supra, 759 n.18.
As our Supreme Court concluded, ‘‘[a]s § 442 B of
the Restatement (Second) of Torts indicates, however,
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if all of the facts were the same except that an adult
intentionally had dropped the concrete on the child’s
head, the defendant’s liability would turn on whether
an adult committing such an act was within the scope
of the risk created by the defendant’s failure to remove
the accumulated debris from its property. Such a case
undoubtedly would be resolved in the defendant’s favor
on a motion for summary judgment because it seems
clear that a jury reasonably could not find that such an
act was a foreseeable risk of the defendant’s negligence.’’
(Emphasis added.) Id.
As the foregoing discussion makes clear, the fact that
Lamb was an adult at the time of these criminal actions
is dispositive. The scope of the risk created by the
defendant’s actions simply does not encompass crimi-
nal activity of the kind that was perpetrated by Lamb.
The defendant’s actions, likewise, did not increase the
risk of harm to the plaintiffs. The rendering of summary
judgment in favor of the defendant was not improper
because no jury could reasonably conclude that Lamb’s
criminal activity was reasonably foreseeable by the
defendant. Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ claim must fail.
As we discussed in part I of this opinion, we nonetheless
proceed with the public policy analysis because these
issues are so deeply intertwined. See footnote 21 of
this opinion.
B
Next, we consider whether the various public policy
interests at play dictate that we conclude that the defen-
dant owed a duty of care to the plaintiffs. Our discussion
of the various public policy interests at play in part I
B of this opinion is equally applicable here.41 We will
41
As detailed in part I B of this opinion, the public policy analysis is a
multifactorial one. See Murillo v. Seymour Ambulance Assn., Inc., 264 Conn.
474, 480, 823 A.2d 1202 (2003) (determining that there are ‘‘four factors to
be considered in determining the extent of a legal duty as a matter of public
policy: (1) the normal expectations of the participants in the activity under
review; (2) the public policy of encouraging participation in the activity,
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not repeat the analysis in part I B, but we will expand
briefly on it.
At the outset, we note that it is the legislature ‘‘which
has the ‘primary responsibility for formulating public
policy’ . . . .’’ Sic v. Nunan, 307 Conn. 399, 410, 54
A.3d 553 (2012); see also Jarmie v. Troncale, 306 Conn.
578, 622, 50 A.3d 802 (2012) (declining to expand duty
of care due to potential unintended consequences and
because it is ‘‘the legislature rather than the courts [that
is] the proper forum for resolving this issue, as it has
done in similar situations’’). Connecticut does mandate
certain forms of liability for parents of minor children,
in addition to whatever other liabilities exist at law.
See General Statutes § 52-572.42 In granting the first
motion for summary judgment, the trial court specifi-
cally noted that § 52-572 could not provide the basis
for imposing liability on the defendant, given that Lamb
was an adult during the applicable time period alleged
in the complaint.43 Moreover, as the defendant aptly
while weighing the safety of the participants; (3) the avoidance of increased
litigation; and (4) the decisions of other jurisdictions’’). ‘‘In every case in
which a defendant’s negligent conduct may be remotely related to a plaintiff’s
harm, the courts must draw a line, beyond which the law will not impose
legal liability.’’ Lodge v. Arett Sales Corp., supra, 246 Conn. 578.
42
General Statutes § 52-572 provides: ‘‘(a) The parent or parents or guard-
ian, other than a temporary guardian appointed pursuant to section 45a-
622, of any unemancipated minor or minors, which minor or minors wilfully
or maliciously cause damage to any property or injury to any person, or,
having taken a motor vehicle without the permission of the owner thereof,
cause damage to the motor vehicle, shall be jointly and severally liable with
the minor or minors for the damage or injury to an amount not exceeding
five thousand dollars, if the minor or minors would have been liable for the
damage or injury if they had been adults.
‘‘(b) This section shall not be construed to relieve the minor or minors
from personal liability for the damage or injury.
‘‘(c) The liability provided for in this section shall be in addition to and
not in lieu of any other liability which may exist at law.
‘‘(d) As used in this section, ‘damage’ shall include depriving the owner of
his property or motor vehicle or of the use, possession or enjoyment thereof.’’
43
The trial court also found the plaintiffs’ argument that this case is
analogous to the social host line of cases to be ‘‘unpersuasive.’’ The court
contrasted the scenario presented in Craig v. Driscoll, 262 Conn. 312, 813
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notes, the legislature has enacted laws that specifically
provide for the filing of civil lawsuits against those
who engage in computer crimes. See General Statutes
§§ 53a-251 and 53a-254.44 As this court has previously
stated, § 53a-251 (b) ‘‘evinces a well defined public pol-
icy disallowing knowingly unauthorized access to com-
puter systems . . . .’’ (Emphasis in original.) Brantley
v. New Haven, 100 Conn. App. 853, 861, 920 A.2d 331
(2007). Those statutes, however, do not contemplate
the extension of a duty to anyone who provides Internet
A.2d 1003 (2003), with that presented here, noting that furnishing alcohol
to minors may be a proximate cause of the injuries sustained by a third
party because ‘‘the consumption, resulting intoxication, and injury-produc-
ing conduct are foreseeable intervening causes, or at least the injury-produc-
ing conduct is one of the hazards which make such furnishing [of alcohol]
negligent.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 335; cf. Demond v. Project
Service, LLC, supra, 331 Conn. 837 (owner or possessor of property in this
state generally cannot be held liable in negligence for harms caused by
adults who consume alcohol on that property but cause injury only after
leaving to drive on public roads even when playing active role in creating
risk by serving alcohol).
44
General Statutes § 53a-251 sets forth various ways an individual can be
charged with computer related crimes, all involving unauthorized access to
computers and computer systems. Subsection (b), for example, provides:
‘‘Unauthorized access to a computer system. (1) A person is guilty of the
computer crime of unauthorized access to a computer system when, knowing
that he is not authorized to do so, he accesses or causes to be accessed
any computer system without authorization.
‘‘(2) It shall be an affirmative defense to a prosecution for unauthorized
access to a computer system that: (A) The person reasonably believed that
the owner of the computer system, or a person empowered to license access
thereto, had authorized him to access; (B) the person reasonably believed
that the owner of the computer system, or a person empowered to license
access thereto, would have authorized him to access without payment of
any consideration; or (C) the person reasonably could not have known that
his access was unauthorized.’’ General Statutes § 53a-251 (b).
General Statutes § 53a-254 provides: ‘‘(a) A person is guilty of computer
crime in the third degree when he commits computer crime as defined in
section 53a-251 and (1) the damage to or the value of the property or
computer services exceeds one thousand dollars or (2) he recklessly engages
in conduct which creates a risk of serious physical injury to another person.
‘‘(b) Computer crime in the third degree is a class D felony.’’
Lamb pleaded guilty to, inter alia, twenty counts of computer crime in
the third degree under § 53a-254.
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service to an individual who conducts criminal activity
by means of computers. In ‘‘analyzing the relevant fac-
tors in determining whether recognizing a duty in a
particular instance is inconsistent with public policy
. . . our statutes themselves are a source of public
policy, and may militate in favor of recognizing a com-
mon-law duty of care when doing so advances the gen-
eral policies and objectives of the statute. . . . Thus,
in determining the normal expectations of the parties,
our appellate courts have often looked to Connecticut’s
existing body of common law and statutory law relating
to th[e] issue.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.)
Streifel v. Bulkley, supra, 195 Conn. App. 315. The legis-
lature has not seen fit to enact any statutes requiring
individuals to monitor or supervise another person’s
use of the Internet, and our common law ought not
be deployed to expand liability beyond the statutorily
defined contours of public policy.
The fact that the General Assembly has not expressed,
by way of statute, a public policy interest supporting
the imposition of third-party liability against those who
provide Internet access to others weighs against creat-
ing a common-law duty of care in such circumstances.
Courts must be extraordinarily careful in determining
that public policy interests demand expanding a duty
of care because of the widespread implications such
precedent would create: ‘‘[I]t is well established that
Connecticut courts will not impose a duty of care on
[a defendant] if doing so would be inconsistent with
public policy.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id.,
307.
We also must consider the implications of our deci-
sion in terms of future litigation. See, e.g., Jaworski v.
Kiernan, supra, 241 Conn. 409 (evaluating as public
policy concern ‘‘desire to stem the possible flood of
litigation that might result from adopting simple negli-
gence as the standard of care to be utilized in athletic
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contests’’). It is the role of the legislature, and not the
judiciary, to evaluate and weigh the widespread implica-
tions of making individuals liable for the criminal
Internet activity of another person. Given the ubiquity
of the Internet, subjecting the defendant to liability for
the criminal actions perpetrated by Lamb could, and
likely would, open the proverbial floodgates of litiga-
tion. See also part I B of this opinion.
We conclude that the trial court properly determined
that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to
whether the defendant owed a legal duty to the plain-
tiffs. The court, therefore, properly rendered summary
judgment in favor of the defendant.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.