Opinion ID: 4512211
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Leon Sarkisian

Text: Sarkisian Law Offices Merrillville, Indiana Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CT-88 | March 3, 2020 Page 12 of 13 ATTORNEY FOR AMICUS CURIAE INDIANA TRIAL LAWYERS ASSOCIATION Gabriel A. Hawkins Cohen & Malad, LLP Indianapolis, Indiana Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CT-88 | March 3, 2020 Page 13 of 13 Goff, J., dissenting. I respectfully dissent from the Court’s opinion granting summary judgment to Cavanaugh’s. While I appreciate the majority’s thorough review of recent caselaw concerning foreseeability in the context of duty, I disagree with it in two primary respects. First, the majority adds new requirements to our foreseeability inquiry, elevating the standard to impose a duty. Second, the majority focuses on the particular facts of this case, contrary to the standard provided by precedent. Both problems cause issues on their own, but, more broadly, they combine to impede the right to trial. I would resolve this case differently—focusing on the general, common-sense nature of this foreseeability inquiry—and find that Cavanaugh’s owed Porterfield a duty. I. The majority’s approach elevates the standard for foreseeability as a part of duty and improperly focuses on the facts of the case, impeding the right to a trial. The majority raises the bar of the question of foreseeability in the context of duty by requiring contemporaneous evidence of imminent harm. See ante, at 6, 9. Foreseeability in this context “is a general threshold determination that involves an evaluation of (1) the broad type of plaintiff and (2) the broad type of harm.” Rogers v. Martin, 63 N.E.3d 316, 325 (Ind. 2016). We’ve called this determination “a lesser inquiry” than that in the context of proximate cause. Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar and Grill, Inc., 62 N.E.3d 384, 390 (Ind. 2016) (citation omitted). Contemporaneous evidence—such as escalating tensions—may inform the lesser, threshold determination of foreseeability, but nothing about this determination requires that evidence.1 In other words, the presence of contemporaneous evidence can help show that a criminal act was foreseeable, but the absence of that evidence should not be the determining factor to conclude that a criminal act was unforeseeable. Although the majority says it agrees with this point, ante, at 6 n.1, it backs away from the point when it relies on the alleged absence of contemporaneous evidence to find this fistfight unforeseeable, id. at 10–11. More important than the problem with adding the contemporaneousness requirement, though, is the fact that requiring an imminent harm conflicts with the basic inquiry we undertake at this step. Our task is to determine whether a harm is foreseeable. Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 326; Goodwin, 62 N.E.3d at 388. But the majority’s new requirement that a harm be imminent involves a tougher standard because foreseeable harms are not always imminent. For example, it’s foreseeable that land in a floodplain will flood, but such a flood may not be imminent during a drought. Ultimately, the majority’s new requirements of contemporaneous evidence and imminent harm elevate the bar for foreseeability in the context of duty, making a lesser inquiry into something greater. And while I agree with the majority that businesses should not become 1 In conducting this foreseeability analysis, we consider the defendant’s knowledge, see Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 327, so it makes sense to consider (but not require) contemporaneous evidence of observed escalation, see, e.g., Certa v. Steak ‘n Shake Operations, Inc., 102 N.E.3d 336, 341 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), trans. denied. It makes less sense to exclude from consideration, in defining the general categories of plaintiff and harm, prior similar incidents, which show the defendant’s knowledge in the same way that contemporaneous evidence does. But the majority and at least one panel of our Court of Appeals interpret Goodwin and Rogers as prohibiting consideration of prior similar incidents. Ante, at 11; Cosgray v. French Lick Resort & Casino, 102 N.E.3d 895, 901 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), trans. not sought. However, I’m not as sure that Goodwin and Rogers meant to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The rejected totality-of-thecircumstances test “considers ‘all of the circumstances surrounding an event.’” Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 325 (citation omitted). If by rejecting this test we rejected everything it included, we’d have nothing left to consider. Thus, something must remain, which we’ve said is the defendant’s knowledge. See id. at 327. Chief Judge Magnus-Stinson, in an opinion cited by the majority, found that an alleged prior similar incident could have shown the defendant’s knowledge, and I agree. Doe v. Delta Tau Delta Beta Alpha Chapter, No. 1:16-cv-1480-JMS-DML, 2018 WL 3375016, at  (S.D. Ind. July 11, 2018). This conclusion aligns with common sense: if the same thing happens thirty days in a row, no one will be surprised when it happens on the thirty-first day. See Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 325 (citation omitted) (“[C]ourts will find a duty where, in general, reasonable persons would recognize it and agree that it exists.”). Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CT-88 | March 3, 2020 Page 2 of 5 insurers of their invitees’ safety, its new requirements take us too far toward the harm at the other end of the spectrum: providing blanket immunity to businesses for foreseeable harms that befall their invitees. See Hamilton v. Steak ‘n Shake Operations, Inc., 92 N.E.3d 1166, 1172 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (recognizing the goal of avoiding both ends of the spectrum), trans. denied. The majority also relies on the particular facts of this case rather than conducting the more general analysis our precedent requires. When we look at the broad types of plaintiff and harm as part of the foreseeability inquiry, we do so “without addressing the specific facts of the occurrence.” Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 325. See also Goodwin, 62 N.E.3d at 390– 91. Contrary to this instruction, the majority focuses on the facts underlying this case. The majority emphasizes the lack of tension in the bar, noting that “for hours before the fracas, Porterfield and his friend socialized with bartenders and had no animosity with any other customers.” Ante, at 11. And it concludes that nothing indicated that the people involved in the fight “were particularly suited to committing the specific criminal acts they perpetrated.” Id. In the end, the majority’s focus on the specific facts of this case does what the majority sets out to avoid: it “shifts our common law jurisprudence back into a recently supplanted totality analysis.” Id.2 In addition to the specific issues already discussed, the majority opinion more broadly impedes the right to a trial. See Ind. Const. art. 1, § 2That being said, if we do consider the facts, they weigh against granting Cavanaugh’s summary judgment. As the majority notes, at this stage we must “constru[e] all facts and reasonable inferences drawn from those facts in favor of Porterfield as the nonmovant.” Ante, at 4 (citing Ryan v. TCI Architects/Engineers/Contractors, Inc., 72 N.E.3d 908, 912–13 (Ind. 2017)). Taken in that light, the designated evidence shows that, over the course of twenty or thirty minutes when Cavanaugh’s had security personnel at their exit doors, a conversation between Andrea Acevedo and Porterfield’s friend, Steven McPherson, escalated first into a shouting match between McPherson and Porterfield and a group of men (with the men aggressively approaching McPherson and encircling him) and continued to escalate until the fight broke out. Even under the heightened standard applied by the majority, “reasonable persons would recognize [a duty on Cavanaugh’s part] and agree that it exits.” Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 325 (citation omitted). Thus, summary judgment is inappropriate. Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CT-88 | March 3, 2020 Page 3 of 5 20 (“In all civil cases, the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.”). By raising the bar for finding a duty, the majority’s opinion will lead to summary judgments in close cases, impeding Hoosiers’ right to a trial. And by focusing on the facts in determining whether a duty exists, the majority takes from the factfinder at trial the ability to consider and weigh facts. In Hughley v. State, we recognized the importance of trial when we said, “Indiana consciously errs on the side of letting marginal cases proceed to trial on the merits, rather than risk short-circuiting meritorious claims.” 15 N.E.3d 1000, 1004 (Ind. 2014). Today, however, the majority fails to do the same. II. Based on our general, common-sense foreseeability inquiry, I would find a fight like this one to be foreseeable. I would conduct a different analysis than the majority and reach the opposite result. We’ve said that “a landowner has a duty to take reasonable precautions to protect invitees from foreseeable criminal attacks,” and the extension of this duty to a situation like that presented in this case turns on the foreseeability of the criminal act. Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 324, 326. “[T]his foreseeability analysis should focus on the general class of persons of which the plaintiff was a member and whether the harm suffered was of a kind normally to be expected—without addressing the specific facts of the occurrence.” Id. at 325 (citing Goodwin, 62 N.E.3d at 388–89). Foreseeability in this context is meant to be a common-sense inquiry. See id. (citations omitted) (“[C]ourts will find a duty where, in general, reasonable persons would recognize it and agree that it exists.”); Goodwin, 62 N.E.3d at 392 (citation omitted) (stating that this foreseeability analysis asks “whether there is some probability or likelihood of harm that is serious enough to induce a reasonable person to take precautions to avoid it”). With these instructions in mind, I would find that the broad type of plaintiff here is a bar patron, and the broad type of harm here is injury resulting from a fistfight at the bar’s early morning closing time. While “a shooting inside a neighborhood bar is not foreseeable as a matter of law,” Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CT-88 | March 3, 2020 Page 4 of 5 Goodwin, 62 N.E.3d at 394, a closing-time fistfight is. We’ve already recognized the common-sense notion that “bars can often set the stage for rowdy behavior.” Id. at 393. Indeed, the fact that bouncers exist and the commonplace depictions of barfights in popular culture, to name a couple examples, prove the point. Similarly, I believe that most people would agree that the combination of such rowdy behavior, alcohol, and late hour (or early, depending on your perspective) sets the stage for potential disagreements and physical altercations. Said differently, few people would be surprised to learn that a run-of-the-mill fistfight broke out right after a bar closed at 3 a.m. I believe that reasonable people would recognize the unremarkable nature of a fistfight involving bar patrons at the bar’s early morning closing time, and they would take precautions to avoid it. See Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 325; Goodwin, 62 N.E.3d at 392. Thus, I would hold that Cavanaugh’s owed a duty to protect Porterfield from this foreseeable fight, and I would affirm the trial court’s denial of the summary judgment motion. Such a holding is more limited than the majority and Cavanaugh’s fear. This holding’s precedential value would be limited to cases involving the same classes of plaintiff and harm identified here; it would not impose a duty on every bar in the state. And after a duty is found here, Porterfield would still have to prove the other elements of negligence—breach and proximate causation of a compensable injury—before Cavanaugh’s could be held liable. See Rogers, 63 N.E.3d at 321; Goodwin, 62 N.E.3d at 386. Proving these elements would not be an easy task. To the contrary, when the facts are no longer viewed in Porterfield’s favor and when Cavanaugh’s presents evidence of its security practices and actions here, a jury could easily find that Cavanaugh’s was not responsible for Porterfield’s injuries. Simply put, allowing this case to proceed falls well short of imposing liability on Cavanaugh’s or any other bar in the state. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. David, J., joins. Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-CT-88 | March 3, 2020 Page 5 of 5