Brum v Town of Dartmouth and the Public Duty Rule: Navigating an Interpretive Quagmire

In 1993, a group of youths entered the Dartmouth High School and stabbed sixteen-year old Jason Robinson to death in his social studies classroom. In 1999, in Brum v. Town of Dartmouth, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the town was immune from suit pursuant to Massachusetts’ statutory “public duty rule,” which insulates public employers from liability where the employer does not “originally cause” the harm. This Article traces the evolution of public tort liability in Massachusetts, suggests a three-part framework for interpreting Massachusetts’ public duty rule and proposes a narrowly-tailored exception to the rule in cases like Brunt.