Case Name: CONTINENTAL CASUALTY COMPANY and Multicon Construction Corporation v. Delores McCLURE et al.
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1975-05-01
Citations: 313 So. 2d 260
Docket Number: No. 6194
Parties: CONTINENTAL CASUALTY COMPANY and Multicon Construction Corporation v. Delores McCLURE et al.
Judges: Before LEMMON and STOULIG, JJ., and MARCEL, J. Pro Tem.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 313
Pages: 260–263

Head Matter:
CONTINENTAL CASUALTY COMPANY and Multicon Construction Corporation v. Delores McCLURE et al.
No. 6194.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
May 1, 1975.
Rehearing Denied June 11, 1975.
Deutsch, Kerrigan & Stiles, Raymon G. Jones, New Orleans, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Hammett, Leake & Hammett, Craig R. Nelson, New Orleans, for defendants-appel-lees.
Before LEMMON and STOULIG, JJ., and MARCEL, J. Pro Tem.

Opinion:
LEMMON, Judge.
This is an action by an apartment building owner and its subrogated fire insurer to recover fire damage to the building allegedly caused by the minor children of the three defendants. Plaintiffs have appealed from a summary judgment dismissing one of the defendants.
Plaintiffs' petition alleged that the three minors were the sole occupants of the apartment immediately prior to and at the time of the fire; that the fire was caused by their playing with matches or cigarettes ; and that the children's administrators were liable either vicariously for the children's torts or individually for failing to properly supervise the children. Further alleging that the facts of the accident were entirely within the knowledge of the three defendants and their minor children, plaintiffs also pleaded the applicability of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur.
Donald Fleming, one of the defendants, answered the petition and then filed a motion for summary judgment. In support of his motion, Fleming filed an affidavit by his minor son, stating the fire started in an upstairs bedroom in Mrs. Delores McClure's apartment; that on the day of the fire he was in and out of the McClure apartment but was never in the upstairs bedroom where the fire started; that the other two minors were upstairs in the bedroom several minutes before the fire start ed, and that one of the minors had been smoking when he went upstairs; and that when the fire broke out upstairs, the other two minors ran outside.
Plaintiffs filed no opposing affidavits. They did, however, file a brief, to which they attached a copy of the Fire Department's report and two written statements signed by the minor children of the other defendants;
C.C.P. art. 966 provides for summary judgment if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions and affidavits (which may contain sworn or certified copies of the other documents, see C.C.P. art. 967) show there is no genuine issue of material fact and the mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
The fire report, although a certified copy, was not accompanied by an affidavit of anyone from the Fire Department. Furthermore, the written statements were not in affidavit form or in any manner sworn to or verified by the parties furnishing the statements. In our opinion these unsworn and unverified documents are not of sufficient evidentiary quality as to be given weight in determining whether or not there is a genuine issue of material fact. We have therefore reviewed the record without considering these documents.
The party who opposes a properly supported motion for summary judgment cannot rely on the bare allegations or denials of his pleadings, but must respond by affidavit or "as otherwise provided" and must set forth specific facts showing the existence of a genuine factual issue. C.C.P. art. 967. If the opposing party does not so respond (and plaintiffs did not), "summary judgment, if appropriate, shall be rendered against him."
Even though we do not consider plaintiffs' documents, we must still determine whether summary judgment was appropriate, since the opposing party need not file affidavits unless the moving party has established both that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
The summary judgment procedure was primarily designed to allow a decision on legal issues without the necessity of a trial on the merits when there are really no factual issues in dispute. Thus, the procedure is rarely appropriate in a suit to determine whether or not a person's behavior constituted an actionable tort under existing circumstances, since such determination almost always involves factual disputes. Nevertheless, where the moving party files an affidavit which, while un-contradicted, sets the operative facts as to tortious conduct at rest, the opposing party must establish that there is a factual dispute or suffer the possibility of a summary judgment. In the absence of a factual dispute (and the necessity for weighing evidence which cannot be permitted in summary judgment proceedings), the trial judge merely accepts, as established, all of the undisputed facts and determines, as a matter of law, whether under the establish;ment facts the mover is entitled to the relief sought.
In the present case the affiant stated that persons other than himself were involved in the events which led up to the fire and that he was not. He accounted for his behavior at all pertinent times. Plaintiffs failed to utilize opposing affidavits or other procedures to set forth facts of tortious conduct or to state circumstances from which tortious conduct could be inferred. Plaintiffs thus allowed af- fiant's statements exonerating himself from liability to remain uncontroverted.
The judgment is affirmed.
Affirmed.
STOULIG, J., dissents with written reasons.
. For a discussion of documents permitted under decisions interpreting the Federal Rules, see 10 Wright and Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2721, 2722 (1973).
. Plaintiffs cannot defeat the summary judgment by relying solely on their assertion of the applicability of res ipsa loquitur. That doctrine simply means that plaintiffs' case to some extent depends on the use of circumstantial evidence. To defeat Fleming's motion, plaintiffs were required to set forth circumstances from which negligence of the Fleming child could he reasonably inferred (and thus necessitate that the trial judge weigh the circumstantial evidence and the probabilities inferred from this evidence in order to adjudicate Fleming's negligence).
Plaintiffs failed to assert facts outlining such circumstances.