Doctors can be sued for failing to report suspicions of child abuse, even though the Child Protective Services Law lacks an explicit civil remedy, the state Superior Court has ruled.

A unanimous three-judge panel reversed and remanded a Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas decision Aug. 25, holding that the plaintiffs sufficiently presented a prima facie case that a child's risk of harm was increased by six doctors who cared for him but failed to report abuse.

“Irrespective of whether the legislature intended to imply a private right of action under the CPSL, it beggars belief that, in enacting that statute, the General Assembly intended to immunize from civil redress violations of the standard of care so severe that the legislature deemed them worthy of criminal punishment,” Judge David N. Wecht wrote for the court in K.H. v. Kumar. He was joined by Judge Jacqueline O. Shogan and Senior Judge Eugene B. Strassburger III.