Lamb

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 jurisdict