California Government Code section 815.6

Government Code section 815.6 provides: "Where a public entity is under a mandatory duty imposed by an enactment that is designed to protect against the risk of a particular kind of injury, the public entity is liable for an injury of that kind proximately caused by its failure to discharge the duty unless the public entity establishes that it exercised reasonable diligence to discharge the duty." Under Government Code section 815.6, the enactment must be obligatory, it must require that a particular action be taken or not taken, the mandatory duty must be designed to protect against the particular kind of injury the plaintiff suffered, and the plaintiff must show the breach of the mandatory duty was the proximate cause of the injury suffered. (County of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2002) 102 Cal.App.4th 627.) The Court explained that "'one of the essential elements that must be pled is the existence of a specific statutory duty. . . . ". . . Since the duty of a governmental agency can only be created by statute or 'enactment,' the statute or 'enactment' claimed to establish the duty must at the very least be identified." . . .'" (Id. at p. 638.)