Opinion ID: 1904447
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Liability of Jones

Text: Appellants' claim against Jones is based upon a theory of negligent hiring or retention [2] , a cause of action recently considered by this Court in Cramer v. Housing Opportunities Comm'n, 304 Md. 705, 501 A.2d 35 (1985). Appellants concede that Jones was not negligent in hiring Wantland to perform the duties of a carpentry instructor. They contend, however, that Jones was negligent in later extending Wantland's duties to include caretaking and security functions, and that in any event Jones was negligent in retaining Wantland in any security or caretaking capacity after receiving notice of Wantland's statement to Rawles concerning his intended treatment of suspected vandals. The trial judge ruled that the uncontested facts demonstrated Wantland had been hired only as a carpentry instructor. Our review of the record leads us to conclude that there exists a genuine dispute of fact as to whether Wantland had been authorized by Jones to perform the additional duties of caretaking and security. By the terms of its agreement with the College, the County assumed occupancy and control of the property and assumed all maintenance, upkeep and security costs. Additionally, the County was required to provide security to protect tools, training aids, and materials owned by it and by the Federal Government and kept at the training site. The County's contract with Jones required that Jones establish and maintain a property control system in accordance with the United States Department of Labor requirements to insure adequate safeguards to prevent loss, damages, or theft of property of the [County]. The funds allotted for Jones' use included a line item of $500.00 for maintenance of the alarm system on the property, and $3,200.00 for security, upkeep, and maintenance of the premises for four months. [3] It is clear from the record that security and caretaking duties were given to Ruffin, the Assistant Director of the project and an employee of Jones, but there is a dispute as to whether the County contracted directly with Ruffin for the performance of these duties, or Jones assigned the additional duties to Ruffin. There is also a dispute as to whether Ruffin was to receive additional pay for the performance of these duties, or was to be compensated by being furnished lodging at the site. It is admitted that Ruffin lived on the premises; that the arrangement was made or approved by Gordon, who served as Director of the project for Jones; and, that a purpose of the arrangement was to provide better security for the premises. In his answer to interrogatories, Jones identified Ruffin when asked to identify ... every individual employed by you at the Clinton Center project in the capacity of caretakers or security personnel. In a subsequent answer, Jones said, [t]here was no salary paid.... He was provided with living quarters at the training site. Finding these facts sufficient to allow a jury to conclude that Jones contracted with the County to perform required caretaking and security duties, and that Jones in turn assigned Ruffin to carry out these duties, we turn to the involvement of Wantland. The record shows that Wantland was also furnished lodging at the site. Furthermore, there is evidence that the arrangement was similar to that made with Ruffin, in that the consideration was at least in part to provide additional security. In his affidavit, Rawles said: That about a week or two weeks before I heard that Donald Henley was killed, I heard Albert Ruffin and Milton Gordon talking about these burglaries. I heard them talk about moving Wantland into the Mansion to be sure that someone was there at night to help prevent the thefts. In his deposition, Ruffin confirmed he had talked with Gordon about moving Wantland onto the site, and had discussed the reason for the arrangement. He said that although he recalled agreeing with the reason given by Gordon, he could not then recall what the reason was. Ruffin also testified that he and Wantland had agreed that one of them would remain on the site at all times to secure the property against vandals. Patricia Lau, who was employed by Jones as a secretary and occupied an office on the site, testified of her contemporaneous knowledge of the break-ins and the vandalism, and her understanding, derived from general conversation, that Wantland and Ruffin were supposed to coordinate their times of being there for security purposes. Additionally, the statement made by Wantland to Rawles concerning Wantland's alleged knowledge of the identity of a vandal and his intent if he was successful in catching him is sufficient to support the conclusion that Wantland believed he had been assigned security duties. Considering the totality of this evidence, we conclude the trier of fact could find that Gordon and Ruffin were managerial employees of Jones with authority to assign additional duties to other employees of Jones, and that acting in that capacity, they assigned Wantland security duties to be carried out jointly with Ruffin, and compensated Wantland for these additional duties by arranging lodging for him on the site. Accordingly, summary judgment should not have been granted in favor of Jones on the basis of there being no evidence of a hiring or retention of Wantland for any duties other than as carpentry instructor. The Court of Special Appeals advanced as an alternative ground for affirming the action of the lower court the absence of evidence to prove the element of proximate cause. Although an appellate court may in an appropriate case affirm a decision for a reason other than that relied upon by the trial judge, Robeson v. State, 285 Md. 498, 501-02, 403 A.2d 1221 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1021, 100 S.Ct. 680, 62 L.Ed.2d 654 (1980), we decline to do so here. As we pointed out in Metropolitan Mtg. Fd. v. Basiliko, 288 Md. 25, 27-29, 415 A.2d 582, (1980), a trial judge possesses broad discretion to deny a summary judgment even though the technical requirements for entry of such a judgment have been met. The effect of our ruling on the issue of proximate cause, or on any other issue not considered by the trial judge, would be to deprive the trial judge of discretion to deny or to defer until trial on the merits the entry of judgment on such issues. Because this case must be remanded for further proceedings, we shall make certain observations concerning issues presented by the facts. This involves the test of foreseeability of harm, and the utilization of that test either in determining the existence of a duty owed to the Plaintiff or in resolving the issue of proximate cause. The concept that all persons owe a duty to all other persons to use reasonable care to protect them from harm must be limited if we are to avoid liability for unreasonably remote consequences. The requirement that specific negligent conduct be a legally cognizable cause as well as a cause in fact of the harm has come to be known as the requirement of proximate cause. See Evans v. State, 304 Md. 487, 531-33, 499 A.2d 1261 (1985); Scott v. Watson, 278 Md. 160, 171-73, 359 A.2d 548 (1976); and Peterson v. Underwood, 258 Md. 9, 264 A.2d 851 (1970). And at least since 1928 when Judge Cardozo wrote Palsgraf v. Long Island R. Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928) courts have given further effect to the social policy of limitation of liability for remote consequences by narrowing the concept of duty to embrace only those persons or classes of persons to whom harm of some type might reasonably have been foreseen as a result of the particular tortious conduct. In Prosser and Keeton on The Law of Torts § 53 (W. Keeton 5th ed. 1984) the authors conclude that the limitation of causation by the use of the modifier proximate and the limitation of duty by the requirement of foreseeability are fundamentally similar. See also Semler v. Psychiatric Institute of Washington, D.C., 538 F.2d 121 (4th Cir.1976). This Court has found that the two theories are not mutually exclusive, Owens v. Simon, 245 Md. 404, 409, 226 A.2d 548 (1967), but are closely related, Liberto v. Holfeldt, 221 Md. 62, 67, 155 A.2d 698 (1959). See also Folk v. Bossler, 256 Md. 232, 235-39, 260 A.2d 64 (1969); McGowans v. Howard, 234 Md. 134, 138, 197 A.2d 915 (1964); Resavage v. Davies, 199 Md. 479, 484-85, 86 A.2d 879 (1952). In applying the test of foreseeability in either context it is well to keep in mind that it is simply intended to reflect current societal standards with respect to an acceptable nexus between the negligent act and the ensuing harm, and to avoid the attachment of liability where, in the language of Section 435(2) of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965), it appears highly extraordinary that the negligent conduct should have brought about the harm. The application of the foreseeability requirement to determine the existence of a duty has in some cases spawned the belief that a duty will be found only in favor of identifiable plaintiffs, i.e., those within a foreseeable zone of danger whose identities are known in advance. There will, of course, be instances in which the ability to identify the person or persons subjected to an increased risk of harm by the negligent action of a defendant will be important in the determination of the existence of a particular duty, or in determining the nature of that duty. The cases of Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California, 17 Cal.3d 425, 551 P.2d 334, 131 Cal. Rptr. 14 (1976); and Thompson v. County of Alameda, 27 Cal.3d 741, 614 P.2d 728, 167 Cal. Rptr. 70 (1980) illustrate the point. In Tarasoff a dangerous patient had informed his psychologist of his intent to kill an un-named, but readily identifiable woman. In Thompson a juvenile delinquent known to have dangerous propensities notified his custodians that he would, if released, take the life of some young child living in his neighborhood. He gave no indication of which, if any particular young child he intended as his victim. In considering the existence of a duty to warn, the California Supreme Court noted that the victim in Tarasoff was readily identifiable, and notification was feasible, so that it was reasonable to impose a duty to warn the intended victim of the impending danger. The court held in Thompson, however, that it was impossible to identify a particular victim in advance, and that under all of the circumstances it would be unrealistic and contrary to sound policy to require general warnings to the public before releasing any prisoner who had a violent history and who had made non-specific threats of harm directed at non-specific victims. Noting that the County was immune from liability for its discretionary acts in determining to release the juvenile and in selecting the juvenile's mother as an appropriate custodian, and finding that there was no duty to notify the juvenile's mother of the threat made earlier, the California Court rejected the Thompson claim. [4] What must be kept in mind is that the question of foreseeable identification of a plaintiff, while relevant to the determination of the existence of a duty to warn, is not necessarily relevant to the existence of other duties that may arise. As the dissenting justices pointed out in Thompson, a physician must warn a patient if the patient's condition or the probable effects of medication administered will render certain conduct, such as driving a car, dangerous to others, but it would be absurd to confine that duty to motorists or pedestrians whom the physician could identify in advance. In that instance, while the duty extends to a large class, it can be discharged by a proper warning to the patient. The question facing the Thompson court was whether any duty reasonably capable of being discharged by the defendant existed under the particular circumstances of that case. The claim here made against Jones is readily distinguishable. The duty of an employer, as explicated in Evans v. Morsell, 284 Md. 160, 395 A.2d 480 (1978) and Cramer v. Housing Opportunities Comm'n, supra , is to use reasonable care to select employees competent and fit for the work assigned to them and to refrain from retaining the services of an unfit employee. The class of persons intended to be protected by the imposition of this duty necessarily includes those members of the public who would reasonably be expected to come into contact with Wantland in his performance of security duties. That such persons could not be identified in advance does not mean that they are not included in the class. Foreseeability as a factor in the determination of the existence of a duty involves a prospective consideration of the facts existing at the time of the negligent conduct. Foreseeability as an element of proximate cause permits a retrospective consideration of the total facts of the occurrence, including the criminal acts of a third person occurring after the original act of negligence of a tortfeasor. Without attempting to establish a bright line rule applicable in every case, we conclude that under the circumstances of this case the question of the sufficiency of the nexus between the alleged negligence of Jones and the fatal assault upon Donald, involving as it does a retrospective consideration of the precise facts of the occurrence, is properly addressed as an issue of proximate cause rather than one involving the existence of a duty owed to the plaintiff. Accordingly, the causation problem that exists under the facts of this case involves proof of an appropriate nexus between the assignment of security duties to Wantland and the slaying. See Cramer v. Housing Opportunities Comm'n, supra, 304 Md. at 713, 720-21, 501 A.2d 35. It is at least a permissible conclusion that a suspected vandal would be within the class of persons subjected to an increased risk of harm by the negligent assignment of security duties to Wantland, and thus the test of foreseeability may be met if it is shown that Wantland was engaged in activities related to security duties and the victim was a suspected vandal.