Gatlin-Johnson ex rel. Gatlin v. City of Miles City, — P.3d —-, 2012 WL 6643862 (Mont.), 2012 MT 302 The public duty doctrine provides that a governmental entity cannot be held liable for an individual plaintiff’s injury resulting from a governmental officer’s breach of a duty owed to the general public rather than to the individual plaintiff. Exceptions exist where a “special relationship” exists that gives rise to a duty to a particular class of people to which the plaintiff belongs. A special relationship can be established where there is a statute intended to protect from harm a specific class of persons including the plaintiff; when the government undertakes to protect a specific person; when governmental actions reasonably induce detrimental reliance by an individual; and where the government has actual custody of the plaintiff or of a third person who harms the plaintiff. The public duty doctrine was not intended to apply in every case to the exclusion of any other duty a public entity may have. It applies only if the public entity truly has a duty owed only to the public at large, such as a duty to provide law enforcement services or regulate the practice of medicine. It does not apply where the government’s duty is defined by other generally applicable principles of law.