Richard P. v. Vista Del Mar Child Care Service

Plaintiffs sued defendant after discovering that a child whom they had adopted through defendant several years earlier was suffering from “extreme emotional and adjustment problems.” The trial court sustained defendant’s demurrer to the first amended complaint and, following plaintiffs’ failure to amend the complaint within the 30-day period provided, ordered the action dismissed. Plaintiffs appeal from the judgment of dismissal. We affirm.

The thrust of the complaint is that an adoption agency may be held liable in tort on a theory of intentional or negligent misrepresentation in failing to warn the adoptive parents that the infant’s premature birth might in the future lead to health problems, either physical or mental. As to an adoption agency’s tortious liability based on negligence, recently the court in Smith v. Alameda County Social Services Agency (1979) 90 Cal.App.3d 929 [ 153 Cal.Rptr. 712 ], refused, based on reasons of public policy, to recognize tortious liability on the part of an adoption agency that had negligently failed to carry out its responsibilities in placing the child, who incidentally had brought the lawsuit against the agency, for adoption.…