Pleading requirements to establish the failure to discharge a mandatory duty [Gov. Code 815.6.]

Gov. Code § 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."

In Nunn v. State of California (1984) 35 Cal.3d 616, 624, the court found a three prong test to determining liability under § 815.6.

"(1) an enactment must impose a mandatory, not discretionary, duty ...; (2) the enactment must intend to protect against the kind of risk of injury suffered by the party asserting section 815.6 as a basis for liability ...; and (3) breach of the mandatory duty must be a proximate cause of the injury suffered." (Ibid; citations omitted.)"  See also Becerra v. County of Santa Cruz 68 Cal.App.4th 1450 (1998)

The first prong requires a ltigant who seeks to plead the breach of a mandatory duty to specifically allege the applicable statute or regulation.  In other  words...

"Duty cannot be alleged simply by stating `defendant had a duty under the law; that is a conclusion of law, not an allegation of fact. The facts showing the existence of the claimed duty must be alleged. Sullivan v. City of Sacramento (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 1070, 1080" Becerra v. County of Santa Cruz

See also Searcy v. Hemet Unified School Dist., 177 Cal. App. 3d 792...

"[t]o state a cause of action every fact essential to the existence of statutory liability must be pleaded with particularity, including the existence of a statutory duty. (Susman v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 269 Cal. App.2d 803, 809.) Duty cannot be alleged simply by stating "defendant had a duty under the law"; that is a conclusion of law, not an allegation of fact. The facts showing the existence of the claimed duty must be alleged. (Id.; see also Rubinow v. County of San Bernardino (1959) 169 Cal. App.2d 67, 71 [336 P.2d 968].) 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."

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Note:  The term "duty" as it is used in Gov. Code § 815.6 [relative to an failure to perform a mandatory duty]  should not to be confused with the duty of care element of a cause of action for negligence.