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Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued January 8, 2020

Decided February 7, 2020

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge

No. 19-2566

LEE TILL,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

DOLGENCORP, LLC and

DOLGENCORP INC. d/b/a

DOLLAR GENERAL,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Southern District of Indiana,

Indianapolis Division.

No. 1:18-cv-00127

Tanya Walton Pratt, 

Judge.

O R D E R

Lee Till filed this negligence action against discount merchandiser Dollar General

after he was injured delivering merchandise to one of its stores. The district court

entered summary judgment for Dollar General. Till v. Dolgencorp, LLC, 2019 WL 3208121

(S.D. Ind. July 16, 2019). Till appeals, but because he has not shown that Dollar General

owed him a duty of care, we affirm.

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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I.

Till worked as a delivery truck driver for U.S. Xpress, which had contracted to

deliver merchandise, supplies, and other items to Dollar General stores from the Dollar

General distribution center in Marion, Indiana. In practice, Dollar General would pack

the merchandise into “roll-tainers” (tall, cage-like containers on wheels), and then load

these roll-tainers into trailers which were sealed shut once ready for delivery. A U.S.

Xpress driver would then pick up a trailer and proceed to deliver the contents to Dollar

General stores. On arrival at each store, a store manager (or designee) would unseal the

trailer, indicate where the driver was to deliver the roll-tainers, and the driver would

then unload the roll-tainers from the trailer and roll them into the store.

On May 28, 2016, Till was pushing a roll-tainer up a ramp into a Dollar General

store in Mooresville, Indiana. He alleges that the roll-tainer was top-heavy: It was filled

with packs of bottled water positioned above the halfway point of the roll-tainer, which 

he asserts was against warehouse loading practices as it increased the likelihood that

the roll-tainer might wobble or tip over. (Dollar General conducts random inspections

of loaded roll-tainers at the warehouse to catch such problems, but apparently this rolltainer was not inspected.) As Till pushed the roll-tainer over the threshold or “lip” of

the service entrance into the store, the roll-tainer “bucked back” against him, causing

him to fall to his knees. When the roll-tainer began to roll toward him, he attempted to

push it off to his right side, but his arm became stuck in the cage of the roll-tainer and

was pulled from its socket.

Pursuant to the contract between Dollar General and U.S. Xpress, U.S. Xpress

operated as an independent contractor and was to have exclusive control and direction

of the persons operating equipment and making the delivery of Dollar General’s

merchandise. As such, it was the responsibility of U.S. Xpress to ensure that its drivers

were properly trained in the unloading and delivery of the roll-tainers. Till asserts,

however, that drivers were not permitted to unpack and reorganize the contents of the

roll-tainers, although Dollar General disputes this averment. Nonetheless, as noted

above, the loaded trailers are sealed when the drivers take possession of them for

delivery, and it is only the Dollar General store managers who unseal the trailers when

they arrive at each store. (The managers then re-seal the trailers after each delivery is

completed.)

Till sued Dollar General for negligence in Indiana state court, and Dollar General

removed the case to federal court based on the parties’ diversity of citizenship. See 28

U.S.C. § 1332. Dollar General moved for summary judgment solely on the element of

duty, arguing that it had no duty of care as to U.S. Xpress and its drivers given the

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status of U.S. Xpress as an independent contractor. R. 48. In response to the motion, Till

relied on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur to establish Dollar General’s negligence. His

theory was that because Dollar General was solely responsible for pre-packing the rolltainer which injured him, and that a properly packed roll-tainer should not “buck

back,” negligence could be inferred simply from the way in which the incident

unfolded. R. 71.

The district court granted summary judgment to Dollar General. Judge Pratt

relied in the first instance on the general rule that an employer (in this case, Dollar

General) owes no duty to supervise the work of an independent contractor to ensure a

safe workplace. 2019 WL 3208121, at *3. Here, the contract between Dollar General and

U.S. Xpress “clearly placed responsibility on U.S. Xpress for unloading the roll-tainers

from the trailers and for properly training its truck drivers on the procedures of

unloading the roll-tainers. Furthermore, none of the exceptions to the general rule that

no duty is owed from an employer to an independent contractor applies in this case.”

Id., at *5.

As to Till’s res ipsa loquitur argument, the court held that theory to be unavailing,

because although Dollar General may have had sole responsibility for packing and

inspecting the roll-tainers and loading them into a trailer, “the undisputed facts also

show that Dollar General relinquished all control over the trailer and roll-tainers to U.S.

Xpress and Till when Till picked up the trailer. Till maintained control over the rolltainers until they were placed inside the Dollar General store.” Id., at *6. Thus, it could

not be said that Dollar General exercised exclusive control over the instrumentality of

Till’s injury (i.e., the top-heavy roll-tainer) as would be required to prevail under a res

ipsa loquitur injury. Id.

II.

We review the district court’s summary judgment decision de novo, construing

the record evidence in the light most favorable to Till, as the non-movant. E.g.,

Youngman v. Peoria Cnty., — F.3d —, 2020 WL 399040, at *3 (7th Cir. Jan. 24, 2020). We

may affirm on any ground supported by the record, so long as it was properly raised

below. Id.

As noted, Dollar General’s summary judgment motion was focused exclusively

on whether it owed a driver for U.S. Xpress, an independent contractor, any duty of

care. In responding to that motion, Till’s memorandum ignored that issue and skipped

ahead to the question of whether Dollar General was negligent. That was the obvious

aim of his res ipsa loquitur theory. Under Indiana law, res ipsa loquitur is an evidentiary

doctrine that permits an inference of negligence to be drawn from certain key facts:

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(1) the instrumentality of the plaintiff’s injury was within the exclusive management

and control of the defendant, and (2) the accident was of the type that ordinarily would

not happen if those who have management and control exercise due care. Maroules v.

Jumbo, Inc., 452 F.3d 639, 642–43 (7th Cir. 2006). But the existence of a duty of care is a

separate and threshold question. “Duty of care is an element in every negligence claim,

as is the breach of that duty and the fact that the breach caused the injury.” Waldon v.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Store No. 1655, 943 F.3d 818, 822 (7th Cir. 2019) (citing Powell v.

Stuber, 89 N.E.3d 430, 433 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017)); see also Webber v. Butner, 923 F.3d 479,

482 (7th Cir. 2019) (Indiana law); Austin v. Walgreen Co., 885 F.3d 1085, 1088 (7th Cir.

2018) (Indiana law). “Absent duty, there can be no negligence.” Ryan v. TCI Architects/

Eng’rs/Contractors, Inc., 72 N.E.3d 908, 913 (Ind. 2017) (citing Peters v. Forster, 804 N.E.2d

736, 738 (Ind. 2004)); Ebbinghouse v. FirstFleet, Inc., 693 N.E.2d 644, 647 (Ind. Ct. App.

1998); see also Salata v. Coca-Cola Refreshments USA, Inc., 2016 WL 1623292, at *6 (N.D. Ill.

April 25, 2016) (St. Eve, J.) (res ipsa loquitur doctrine does not apply unless duty of care is

owed to plaintiff). So unless Dollar General owed Till a duty of care under Indiana law,

it does not matter whether or not Dollar General was negligent in packing the rolltainer. 

As Dollar General has argued below and on appeal, given the status of U.S.

Xpress as an independent contractor, the general rule is that Dollar General bore no

duty of care to U.S. Xpress and its employees. See, e.g., Marks v. N. Ind. Pub. Serv. Co.,

954 N.E.2d 948, 952 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011); Beta Steel v. Rust, 830 N.E.2d 62, 69–70 (Ind. Ct.

App. 2005); Merrill v. Knauf Fiber Glass GmbH, 771 N.E.2d 1258, 1264 (Ind. Ct. App.

2002); cf. Ebbinghouse, 693 N.E.2d at 647–48 (trucking company was not employer of

distributor’s warehouse worker and had no general duty to provide her with safe work

environment). There are exceptions to that rule. See, e.g., id. at 647 (“a duty may exist if

a certain set of facts is found, notwithstanding that the law does not recognize a general

direct duty based upon the parties’ legal relationship”); Marks, 954 N.E.2d at 952–53

(principal may be charged with duty to independent contractor by law or contract);

Merrill, 771 N.E.2d at 1265 (landowner is under duty to keep property in reasonably

safe condition for business invitees, including employees of independent contractor).

But in opposing Dollar General’s summary judgment motion, Till did not develop an

argument that any such exception applied. The closest he came to making a dutyfocused argument was in pursuing his res ipsa loquitur theory, wherein he argued that

Dollar General exercised exclusive control over the packing and contents of the rolltainers. But he did not explain why, as the packer of the roll-tainers, Dollar General

assumed a duty of care vis-à-vis U.S. Xpress and its drivers. The existence of a duty is a

distinct issue, and we do not regard it as so “logically intertwined” with the elements of

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Glover’s res ipsa loquitur theory that having developed the latter Glover may be said to

have developed and preserved an argument as to duty as well. Cf. Nat’l Metalcrafters,

Div. of Keystone Consol. Indus. v. McNeil, 784 F.2d 817, 826 (7th Cir. 1986). 

On appeal, Till has argued that Dollar General owed him a duty of care as a

matter of public policy and common law, and that this duty extended both to the proper

packing of the roll-tainers and the safety of the store premises where the roll-tainers

were delivered. Till argues that Dollar General assumed a duty to pre-pack the rolltainers by exercising exclusive control over the packing process and by having in place

practices as to the proper packing of containers and inspections aimed at detecting

improperly-packed roll-tainers. He further argues that because it was Dollar General’s

responsibility to ensure that its store premises were safe for business invitees (including

delivery drivers), Dollar General owed him a duty to ensure that there was no obstacle

that might cause a roll-tainer to “buck back” when a driver was attempting to deliver

the roll-tainer into the store.

None of these arguments was made below, and therefore Till waived them. E.g.,

Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 944 F.3d 664, 673 (7th Cir. 2019).

And because establishing that Dollar General owed him a duty of care was an essential

element of Till’s negligence claim, his failure to address this element in response to the

summary judgment motion compelled the entry of summary judgment in Dollar

General’s favor. See Youngman, 2020 WL 399040, at *3.

III.

The district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED.

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