Scratchme:
I am sorry but you are actually wrong. Below is 3 cases including more recent cases that a fiduciary duty was not extended. Again I never said it was right but this is what the court has found.
Lewis v Bellows
Falls Congregation 114-CV-205-JGM. (2015)
Holdings: The
District Court, J.
Garvan Murtha,
J., held that:
1 alleged
conduct by church did not create fiduciary relationship between
church and congregant;
2 church
allegedly had duty to provide reasonable supervision of its minister;
3 no
special relationship existed between the church and its minister, as
required to give rise to church's duty to control minister;
4 church
had no duty to protect congregant; and
5 church
had no separate duty to warn its congregants, distinct from a duty to
protect.
Anderson v
Watchtower M2004-01066-COA-R9-CV. (2005)
Barbara Anderson et
al. Claimed that Moses v Diocese of Colorado, 863 P.2d 310 (Colo.
1993) applied to their case. The Appeals court found that the cited
case of Moses: “Recognized that the relationship between a
clergyman and parishioner was normally one involving rust and
reliance, but further held that in order to be liable to breach a
fiduciary duty, the superior party must ‘assume a duty to act in
the dependent party’s best interest,’” And footnote 23 goes on
“Cases examining a breach of fiduciary durty claim in the contest
of a religiously-based relationship have made it clear that the
clergy-parishioner relationship alone is not sufficient to establish
a fiduciary duty. … (declining to find a per se fiduciary
relationship between all clergy and their congregants and requiring
“something more” to demonstrate a justifiable trust on one side
and resulting superiority and influence on the other).”
Brian R v Watchtower
CUM-98-531 (1999)
The appeals court
ruled:
There
does not exist a general obligation to protect others from harm not
created by the actor. “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.” RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS §
314 (1965).
In other words, the mere fact that one individual knows that a third
party is or could be dangerous to others does not make that
individual responsible for controlling the third party or protecting
others from the danger.5
Even
with the emergence of expanded liability for nonfeasance, that
principle has remained clear—in instances of “nonfeasance rather
than misfeasance, and absent a special relationship, the law imposes
no duty to act affirmatively to protect someone from danger unless
the dangerous situation was created by the defendant.” Jackson
v. Tedd–Lait Post No. 75, 1999
ME 26, ¶ 8, 723 A.2d 1220, 1221.
Only when there is a “special relationship,” may the actor be
found to have a common law duty to prevent harm to another caused by
a third party.7 There
is simply “no duty so to control the conduct of a third person as
to prevent him from causing physical harm to another unless ... a
special relation exists between the actor and the other which gives
to the other a right to protection.” RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF
TORTS §
315(b) (1965).8
We
have described the salient elements of a fiduciary relationship as:
(1) “the actual placing of trust and confidence in fact by one
party in another,” and (2) “a great disparity of position and
influence between the parties” at issue. Morris
v. Resolution Trust Corp., 622
A.2d 708, 712 (Me.1993).
A fiduciary relationship has been found to exist in several
categories of relationship, including business
partners, see Rosenthal
v. Rosenthal, 543
A.2d 348, 352 (Me.1988),
families engaged in financial transactions, see Estate
of Campbell, 1997
ME 212, ¶ 9, 704 A.2d 329, 331–32, and
corporate relationships, see Moore
v. Maine Indus. Servs., Inc., 645
A.2d 626, 628 (Me.1994); Webber
v. Webber Oil Co., 495
A.2d 1215, 1224–25 (Me.1985).
We
have noted, however, that a “general allegation of a confidential
relationship is not a sufficient basis for establishing the existence
of one.” Ruebsamen
v. Maddocks, 340
A.2d 31, 35 (Me.1975).
As with any duty, its existence must be informed by “the hand of
history, our ideals of morals and justice, the convenience of
administration of the rule, and our social ideas as to where the loss
should fall.” Trusiani, 538
A.2d at 261.
Although a fiduciary duty may be based on “moral, social, domestic,
or [ ] merely personal [duties],” Ruebsamen, 340
A.2d at 34, it
does not arise merely because of the existence of kinship,
friendship, business relationships, or organizational relationships.
A fiduciary duty will be found to exist, as a matter of law, only in
circumstances where the law will recognize both the disparate
positions of the parties and a reasonable basis for the placement of
trust and confidence in the superior party in the context of specific
events at issue.10 A
court, therefore, must have before it specific facts regarding the
nature of the relationship that is alleged to have given rise to a
fiduciary duty in order to determine whether a duty may exist at law.
