Opinion ID: 4486955
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Contract Applicability

Text: Claimants also contest the Contract’s applicability. Even if the Contract is valid, Claimants contend, it does not bind them. -18- With respect to M.F.’s wrongful death claim, Claimants argue that because M.F. is not a third-party beneficiary or in privity with ADT, the Contract does not apply to his claim. Aplt. Br. at 20. But, as the district court explained, the Contract applies because under the Kansas wrongful death statute, M.F.’s claim is derivative of Frost’s legal rights. See K.S.A. § 60-1901(a). That statute states that M.F. is only permitted to pursue a wrongful death claim “if [Frost] might have maintained the action had [she] lived.” Id. Because the viability of the claim is conditioned on Frost’s legal rights and obligations, the Contract—which affects those rights and obligations—applies to M.F.’s wrongful death claim. See Mason v. Gerin Corp., 647 P.2d 1340, 1345 (Kan. 1982) (describing the decedent’s ability to bring an action as the “condition precedent” to a claim under § 60-1901); see also Salazar v. On the Trails Rentals, Inc., 506 F. App’x 709, 713 (10th Cir. 2012) (affirming dismissal of wrongful death claim brought by decedent’s surviving family on the basis of the liability-limiting provision in the contract decedent entered into). This holds true irrespective of M.F.’s privity of contract or status as a third-party beneficiary. With respect to the remaining claims, Claimants contend the Contract is inapplicable because the causes of action constitute independent torts arising outside of the contractual relationship at issue. Under Kansas law, Claimants may simultaneously pursue claims arising in contract and tort. See Bittel v. Farm -19- Credit Servs. of Cent. Kan., P.C.A., 962 P.2d 491, 497–98 (Kan. 1998). But where parties “abandon their status as legal strangers and define their relationship by contract,” their legal duties are dictated by contract, not tort, law. Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Suburban Ford, 699 P.2d 992, 998 (Kan. 1985); see also Isler v. Texas Oil & Gas Corp., 749 F.2d 22, 24 (10th Cir. 1984) (stating that “an essential corollary of the concept of bargained-for duties is bargained-for liabilities”). Thus, where a contractual relationship exists, it will bar the assertion of tort claims covering the same subject matter. See Regal Ware, Inc. v. Vita Craft Corp., 653 F. Supp. 2d 1146, 1152 (D. Kan. 2006); see also Suburban Ford, 699 P.2d at 998. Here, Claimants’ allegations regarding independent torts committed outside of contractual duties fail under this principle. The Sixth Circuit’s opinion in Spengler v. ADT Security Services, Inc. is instructive. 505 F.3d 456 (6th Cir. 2007). In Spengler, plaintiff entered into a contract with ADT Security Services, Inc. to install and monitor a security alarm at his mother’s home. After receiving an alarm, ADT contacted emergency responders. But ADT erred in the address that it gave to ambulance dispatchers, resulting in a sixteen minute delay in the arrival of emergency medical services. Plaintiff brought suit, alleging tort as well as contract liability. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the tort claims because the tort theories of liability were subsumed within the scope of the -20- contract. See id. at 457 (“[T]his case sounds in contract and not in tort.”). A similar conclusion is warranted here. Although the Sixth Circuit applied Michigan law in Spengler, we detect no meaningful differences between the principles applied there and the Kansas law applicable here. Nor have Claimants put forward any case holding a security services company or similar entity liable in tort for failures to adequately perform monitoring services. See Valenzuela v. ADT Sec. Servs., Inc., 820 F. Supp. 2d 1061, 1070–71 (C.D. Cal.) (noting “plaintiffs have not pointed to, nor has this Court found, a single case in which a court held . . . that an alarm company’s failure to notify the relevant parties of a received burglar alarm signal created a duty outside of the contract.”). In sum, Claimants cannot rely on independent tort theories of liability to avoid the terms of the Contract.