Opinion ID: 2809776
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Degree of Control Exercised by DTD

Text: [¶49] In a premises liability case, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant was in control of the premises. See Stewart v. Aldrich, 2002 ME 16, ¶ 10, 788 A.2d 603 (holding that a landlord is generally not responsible for a dangerous condition that starts after a tenant “takes exclusive possession and control of the premises”); see also Rogers v. Sigma Chi Int’l Fraternity, 9 N.E.3d 755, 760 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) (“In order to have the occupation or control of premises necessary to impose a legal duty with respect to the condition or use of those premises, one must ordinarily have the power and the right to admit individuals to the premises, or to exclude them from the premises.” (quotation marks omitted)). As the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical 28 & Emotional Harm § 49 (2012) provides, a “possessor of land” is generally “a person who occupies the land and controls it.” [¶50] In each of the cases cited by the Court, the duty of care under consideration was a general negligence duty of care not connected to control of the premises. See Grenier v. Comm’r of Transp., 51 A.3d 367, 372-74, 387-89 (Conn. 2012) (reviewing a summary judgment on a negligence claim arising from an automobile collision that occurred off the premises and resulted in a pledge’s death); Morrison v. Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, 738 So. 2d 1105, 1110, 1117-20 (La. Ct. App. 1999) (reviewing a jury verdict on negligence claims arising from an assault, in a university dormitory room, on a student who was interested in membership). [¶51] DTD is not the possessor, or even the owner, of the premises at issue and did not have control over the premises. An entity that is not in possession or control of the premises can be held liable in premises liability only if that party “negligently create[d] a dangerous condition on the land,” in which case the party “may be liable for reasonably foreseeable harms.” Colvin v. A R Cable Servs.-ME, Inc., 1997 ME 163, ¶ 7, 697 A.2d 1289. The case in which this holding was reached involved allegations that a cable company negligently installed a cable box in a location that caused injury to the building manager. Id. ¶¶ 2-4. The facts alleged here are dissimilar because they arise not from an alteration to the premises 29 that rendered it unsafe but instead from the intentional conduct of an individual actually in possession of the premises. [¶52] A national fraternity that does not own, possess, or control the house occupied by its members has no duty in premises liability to a local chapter’s social invitees. See Ostrander v. Duggan, 341 F.3d 745, 748 (8th Cir. 2003) (holding that a national fraternity had no duty in premises liability in part because it did not own, possess, or control the house); see also Yost v. Wabash Coll., 3 N.E.3d 509, 513, 516 (Ind. 2014) (holding, in a premises liability case, that a college was not liable for injuries to a fraternity pledge because it was not in control of premises leased to a local chapter of a fraternity, which had the exclusive right to possess and control the premises); Rogers, 9 N.E.3d at 759-61 (holding that an international fraternity had no premises liability for an assault that occurred at a local chapter’s fraternity party because the premises were not owned by the fraternity or any related party and the fraternity did not exercise control over the premises). [¶53] Here, DTD may have had some influence on its individual members’ conduct, and it did have an affiliation with the owner of the premises, but neither of those facts demonstrates that DTD had the authority to control activities on the premises or its members’ intentional conduct toward those members’ social invitees. See Shaheen v. Yonts, 394 F. App’x 224, 229-30 (6th Cir. 2010) (holding 30 that a duty should not be imposed if a party has no real means of controlling behavior); Yost, 3 N.E.3d at 521 (holding that the national fraternity did not have a duty to a social invitee when it “lacked any direct oversight and control of the individual fraternity members”).4 In the absence of an ability to control activities on the premises, DTD has no duty in premises liability. B. Relationship Between DTD and Social Invitees of DTD Members [¶54] I also disagree with the Court’s conclusion that a special relationship existed. The Court speaks only of the relationship between DTD and its members. The pertinent question, however, is whether there is a special relationship between DTD and Brown, who seeks to recover damages based on her status as a social 4 Even in ordinary negligence cases unrelated to premises liability, national fraternities and building associations have consistently been determined not to have a duty to a local chapter’s social invitees when they do not provide oversight or exercise control. See Shaheen v. Yonts, 394 F. App’x 224, 227-31 (6th Cir. 2010) (holding that neither the national fraternity nor the holding company for fraternity property had a presence at the local chapter house that would generate a duty to supervise and control drinking at a party in that house to prevent injury to a social invitee); Yost v. Wabash Coll., 3 N.E.3d 509, 513, 520-21 (Ind. 2014) (holding that the national fraternity did not have or assume a duty to a fraternity’s pledge because the national fraternity did not oversee and control individual fraternity members or involve itself in the local chapter’s day-to-day management); Grand Aerie Fraternal Order of Eagles v. Carneyhan, 169 S.W.3d 840, 848-54 (Ky. 2005) (holding that the fraternal organization had no duty to a social invitee at a local event because it had no ability to control the local chapter alleged to have caused the harm); Pingeton v. Erhartic, 12 Mass. L. Rptr. 644 (Mass. Super. Ct. 2001) (concluding that, although the national fraternity had an alcohol policy for its local chapters and could discipline local chapters and members, it had no duty to social invitees because it was not present on a day-to-day basis and could not enforce discipline until after violations had occurred); Sparks v. Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, Inc., 255 P.3d 238, 244-46 (Nev. 2011) (holding that the national fraternity did not have a duty to third parties because it did not control or monitor those who attended events organized by a local chapter); Alumni Ass’n v. Sullivan, 572 A.2d 1209, 1209-10, 1212-13 (Pa. 1990) (holding that the national fraternity had no duty to those injured by a social invitee after drinking alcohol because it had no ability to monitor its chapters’ activities and had the power to discipline only after the fact). 31 invitee of a local chapter member when DTD did not itself invite her to the premises. [¶55] A national fraternity such as DTD may well have a special relationship with its own members, but that relationship does not automatically translate into a special relationship with social invitees of those members for purposes of premises liability. This is not a case involving a local fraternity’s hazing of its pledges, cf. Grenier, 51 A.3d at 387-89, or of those interested in membership, cf. Morrison, 738 So. 2d at 1110. Instead, this is a case involving an individual member’s commission of intentional torts against the member’s own guest. [¶56] For purposes of premises liability claims, “[o]nly when there is a special relationship, may the actor be found to have a common law duty to prevent harm to another, caused by a third party.” Belyea v. Shiretown Motor Inn, LP, 2010 ME 75, ¶ 9, 2 A.3d 276 (quotation marks omitted). “There is simply no duty so to control the conduct of a third person as to prevent him from causing physical harm to another unless . . . a special relation exists . . . .” Id. (alterations in original) (quotation marks omitted); see also Hughes, 619 A.2d at 527 (holding that nonfeasance cannot render a defendant liable unless the defendant had a duty to affirmatively protect the plaintiff from a danger that it did not create because of a special relationship with that plaintiff). 32 [¶57] Only “[c]ertain narrowly defined, special relationships give rise to an affirmative duty to aid and protect, such as the relationship between a common carrier and passenger, employer and employee, parent and child, or innkeeper and guest.” Estate of Cilley v. Lane, 2009 ME 133, ¶ 17, 985 A.2d 481 (footnotes omitted); see also Stanton, 2001 ME 96, ¶ 10, 773 A.2d 1045 (holding that the University of Maine had a duty to reasonably warn and advise a student of safety measures); Schultz v. Gould Acad., 332 A.2d 368, 370 (Me. 1975) (holding that a boarding school that provided security staff to protect its residents could be held liable for a failure to provide security “even though a wilful or negligent or criminal act by a third person intervened and contributed to the harm”). [¶58] In distinguishing among relationships to determine whether a duty exists, we have held that, although an innkeeper has a duty to a guest to proactively prevent an assault if it is reasonably foreseeable, it does not have a similar duty to a patron of a lounge that operates on the inn’s premises because there is no special relationship. Belyea, 2010 ME 75, ¶¶ 10-12, 2 A.3d 276. We noted in that case that “a landlord’s mere ability to control [an activity of its tenant] does not give rise to a legal duty.” Id. ¶ 13 (alteration in original) (quotation marks omitted). Thus, even if DTD had some degree of control over activities on the premises, no duty can arise absent the necessary relationship with the injured party. 33 [¶59] Here, DTD did not invite Brown to the premises, and for purposes of premises liability, she was not, as the social invitee of a fraternity member, in a special relationship with DTD, which did not own, possess, or control the local chapter house in which the intentional torts occurred. Unlike an innkeeper in a direct contractual relationship with a lodger, see id., or a boarding school or University that provides housing for its students, see Stanton, 2001 ME 96, ¶ 10, 773 A.2d 1045; Schultz, 332 A.2d at 369-70, DTD had no direct relationship with Brown as a social invitee of a member living in a house owned by a separate entity affiliated with DTD and possessed by local chapter members. The students who were injured in Stanton and Schultz were each lodgers in school-owned dormitories in which assaults occurred. Stanton, 2001 ME 96, ¶¶ 2-3, 10, 773 A.2d 1045; Schultz, 332 A.2d at 369-70. Brown was instead a social invitee of a member of a local chapter of a fraternity affiliated with the holding company that owned the premises. See Delta Tau Delta v. Johnson, 712 N.E.2d 968, 970-75 (Ind. 1999) (holding that, although the local chapter, which owned and occupied the fraternity house, had a duty to a social invitee to keep the premises safe against foreseeable sexual assault, the national fraternity did not undertake to provide security and did not assume such a duty). [¶60] I would conclude that, in addition to failing to demonstrate the necessary degree of control over the premises in DTD, Brown has provided 34 insufficient facts to support the existence of a duty because no special relationship has been shown to exist between Brown and DTD. C. Assumption of Duty [¶61] The facts presented on summary judgment also do not raise a genuine issue of material fact with respect to whether, although no duty otherwise existed, DTD voluntarily assumed a duty of care to protect members’ social invitees against members’ torts on the premises. See Smith v. Delta Tau Delta, Inc., 9 N.E.3d 154, 160 (Ind. 2014). DTD did not undertake to provide security, and the undisputed facts demonstrate only that DTD adopted disciplinary standards and implemented educational programs that were designed to promote proper conduct. A national fraternity that implements clear discipline policies and educates against sexual violence and excessive drinking should not be deemed to have thereby assumed a legally enforceable duty of care to all social invitees of individual members of local chapters. As the Indiana Supreme Court stated, a “national organization . . . should be encouraged, not disincentivized, to undertake programs to promote safe and positive behavior and to discourage hazing and other personally and socially undesirable conduct,” which it might not do if those efforts would render it liable for any misconduct of local members. Yost, 3 N.E.3d at 521. 35