Opinion ID: 2302820
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Gratuitous Undertaking

Text: Here, plaintiff maintains that, even if a special relationship is lacking in this case, Mr. Clukey voluntarily assumed the duty to prevent Mr. Milner from operating his motor vehicle, and then breached this alleged duty by failing to drive him home. Indeed, this precise theory was recognized in Chalfant, 806 P.2d at 983, in which the Supreme Court of Kansas stated that [w]hen the existence of a special relationship is lacking between an actor and another, the actor may still be liable to third persons when he negligently performs an undertaking to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of third persons. Id. Both the Supreme Court of Kansas and plaintiff extract this principle from the standard set forth in the Restatement (Second) Torts § 324A at 142 (1965), which provides as follows: One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of a third person or his things, is subject to liability to the third person for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to protect his undertaking, if (a) his failure to exercise reasonable care increases the risk of such harm, or (b) he has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the third person, or (c) the harm is suffered because of reliance of the other or the third person upon the undertaking. (Emphasis added.) Section 324A tracks the language of § 323 of the restatement, which the recipient of the undertaken services. See Restatement (Second) Torts § 323 (1965). This Court has recognized the doctrine that one who assumes a duty to perform an act must do so with reasonable care whether or not that person had an obligation to perform the act or repairs prior to assuming the duty. Izen v. Winoker, 589 A.2d 824, 828 (R.I.1991) (citing Therrien v. First National Stores, Inc., 63 R.I. 44, 51, 6 A.2d 731, 734 (1939)); see also Davis v. New England Pest Control Co., 576 A.2d 1240, 1242 (R.I.1990) (Even one who assumes to act gratuitously, may become subject to the duty of acting carefully if he acts at all. (citing Security National Bank v. Lish, 311 A.2d 833, 834 (D.C.App.1973))). However, this Court has not adopted the more relaxed standards set forth in §§ 323 and 324 of the restatement, which speak also to the issue of proximate causation, and we decline to do so in the context of this appeal. [19] See Contois v. Town of West Warwick, 865 A.2d 1019, 1024 n. 7 (R.I.2004) (The Restatement standard [under § 323] is extremely relaxed, allowing for recovery when a defendant's negligence increased the risk of harm by any degree.). Thus, we will not review plaintiff's voluntary-assumption-of-duty argument under the standard of § 324A as urged by plaintiff, but instead we proceed to do so through the lens of our existing case law. In Buszta v. Souther, 102 R.I. 609, 232 A.2d 396 (1967), this Court tackled the question of whether an automobile service-station operator who undertook an automobile inspection of an owner's vehicle had a duty to third parties whose injuries were attributable to negligently made repairs, notwithstanding a lack of privity between the injured third party and the inspector. Id. at 611-12, 232 A.2d at 397-98. In resolving this question, we held that where a party to a contract undertakes to render a service or perform an obligation and the circumstances involved in the undertaking make it clear that there is an obvious and unreasonable risk of harm or injury to outsiders if he does not exercise due care in fulfilling the contract, an obligation arises by law and is imposed upon the contracting party to exercise that amount of care and skill reasonably required by the facts and commensurate with the risk presented. Id. at 613-14, 232 A.2d at 399. We further reasoned that [w]e can perceive no difference between [the] defendant who agreed to inspect the employer's automobile and one who might have agreed to repair the vehicle. It has been held that a person who contracts to make repairs must exercise reasonable care in doing so, and although elements of contract may be involved, the repairer is liable in tort to third persons for injuries to such persons which are attributable to negligently made repairs. Id. at 614, 232 A.2d at 399. The case at hand is distinguishable from that considered in Buszta in regard to the nature of the undertakings at issue. The performance of an inspection service by a certified inspection station, upon which inspections both vehicle owners and highway users rely, is not analogous to Mr. Clukey's personal transportation of Mr. Milner over the course of an evening. Moreover, the record reveals that Mr. Clukey completed the task that he undertook shuttling Mr. Milner between locales and returning him to his vehicle at the end of the evening. Though Mr. Clukey had the alternative options of driving Mr. Milner to his residence or preventing him from operating his vehicle in some other fashion, such was not the obligation that Mr. Clukey agreed to perform. Therefore, we hold that the facts of this case do not support the imposition of a duty upon Mr. Clukey owed to Mr. Johnson, or public roadway users in general, based on the theory of negligent performance of a voluntarily-assumed duty. We note that plaintiff has directed this Court to cases in other jurisdictions that have considered an alleged assumption of duty owed by a volunteering designated driver to the public. We further observe that jurisprudence concerning designated driver liability in this country is particularly limited. The most recent case cited by plaintiff is a trial court decision, White v. Sabatino, 415 F.Supp.2d 1163, 1177 (D.Haw.2006), in which the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii conclude[d] that a designated driver undertakes a common law duty to a third party under the Section 324A framework [of the Restatement (Second) Torts ]. However, that case limited the imposition of such a duty in the absence of any evidence indicating that performance of the designated driver duty had been undertaken, particularly in circumstances where parties may have consumed alcohol. White, 415 F.Supp.2d at 1177. Prior to White, the Supreme Court of Alaska likewise recognized a designated driver duty based on the standard set forth in § 324A, particularly subsection (a), in Mulvihill v. Union Oil Co. of California, 859 P.2d 1310 (Alaska 1993). That court, however, ultimately determined that the designated driver had discharged his duty upon bringing the intoxicated passenger home, which was the agreed-upon course of action, and thus could not be liable for the passenger's operation of a vehicle subsequent to the drop-off. Id. at 1314. Importantly, the Supreme Court of Alaska emphasized that imposing such liability would mean that every designated driver who agreed to drive a friend home after a night of drinking would risk liability if that friend chose to drive after the designated driver left. Such a result would undermine society's well-founded desire to encourage sober people to volunteer to drive their intoxicated friends home. Id. Though mindful of these decisions, we emphasize that this Court has not adopted § 324A, and we conclude that our legal philosophy more appropriately aligns with that of jurisdictions declining to impose a duty upon drivers to prevent the tortious conduct of an intoxicated passenger, discussed infra. 3