Opinion ID: 529326
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Duty of a Private Person for Conduct of an Intoxicated Person.

Text: 24 If we examine the liability of the United States in terms of the duty of ordinary private citizens in Texas, we reach the same result. The district court found that the rangers owed Crider a duty to restrain Landry based on Otis Engineering Corp. v. Clark, 668 S.W.2d 307 (Tex.1983). However, the duty established in Otis Engineering is inapplicable to this case. 25 Otis Engineering was a wrongful death case brought by the survivors of two women killed in an accident with an intoxicated Otis employee. The employee's supervisor had sent him home after discovering that he was intoxicated on the job, and the fatal accident occurred on the employee's way home. Whether Otis owed any duty to the decedents was the issue. The Texas Supreme Court recognized that as a general rule a person is under no duty to control the conduct of another, even if he has the practical ability to exercise such control. Otis Engineering, 668 S.W.2d at 309. The Court nevertheless determined that where because of an employee's incapacity, an employer exercises control over the employee, the employer has a duty to take such action as a reasonably prudent employer under the same or similar circumstances would take to prevent the employee from causing an unreasonable risk of harm to others. Id. at 311. 26 Two factors in Otis appear critical to the duty it created: the employer-employee relationship and the affirmative act by Otis in sending the employee home. 4 No Texas court has expanded Otis Engineering to a relationship other than that of employer-employee. See Shankle v. United States, 796 F.2d 742, 746 (5th Cir.1986). 5 In addition, the Texas courts of appeals, in applying Otis Engineering, have made it clear that for an employer to be held liable under the Otis Engineering doctrine, such employer must perform an affirmative act of control over the incapacitated employee. Moore v. Times Herald Printing Co., 762 S.W.2d 933, 934 (Tex.App.--Dallas 1988, no writ). In Otis Engineering, the affirmative act of control was sending the employee home. Where employers have merely allowed an intoxicated or incapacitated employee to drive, Texas courts have denied liability. Moore, supra; Pinkham v. Apple Computer, Inc., 699 S.W.2d 387, 390 (Tex.App.--Fort Worth 1985, writ ref'd n.r.e.). Since it is not our province to extend the boundaries of Texas law, Dean v. Dean, 821 F.2d 279, 284 (5th Cir.1987), we decline to apply Otis Engineering beyond the precise contours of that case. 27 Even if Otis should be considered in every Texas drunken driving case, neither the relationship between Landry and the park rangers nor their affirmative acts should give rise to a legal duty. 6 The Otis Engineering duty appears to arise from a relationship in which Otis not only had the ability to control its employee, but also stood to profit from his work and continued wellbeing. Their relationship was created voluntarily and mutually. The Supreme Court keys its duty holding upon comparison with a reasonably prudent employer. 668 S.W.2d at 311. The trier of fact is instructed to gauge whether Otis fulfilled its duty by the availability of the nurses' aid station, a possible phone call to Mrs. Matheson [or] having another employee drive Matheson home ... Id. 28 No serious comparison can be drawn between an employer-employee relationship and that of Landry and the park rangers. The rangers and Landry did not associate voluntarily or mutually. The rangers could in no way profit or benefit from their relation with Landry. Their ability to control him was strictly limited within the confines of their responsibilities. To extend their control further would conflict with our libertarian views of the police function. Surely, too, it presses the potential liability of law enforcement officers--or of any group--to the extreme to suggest that just by having contact with a potentially dangerous actor they become responsible in tort for his conduct. Otis Engineering disavows any such intent, stating that a duty ... would not be based on mere knowledge of Matheson's intoxication, but would be based on additional factors. (emphasis in original) 668 S.W.2d at 309. 29 Additional factors are inherent in the employer-employee relationship that starkly distinguish it from the present case. There is ordinarily a workplace and often a nurses' station or quiet area where an employer could sequester an intoxicated worker while he sobers up. Such facilities will rarely be available to the policeman on the beat--unless he drops everything and becomes unavailable for other duty while he handles the drunk. Otis Engineering is willing to impose on employers the cost of an interruption in their business while they tend to an intoxicated employee, but that cost is objectively quantifiable and not physically risky. Imposing such a cost on law enforcement is entirely different, however, because of the unpredictability and potential danger of the job and the high risk of imposing artificial priorities on it. Otis Engineering seems to create a unique species of liability premised on the employer-employee relation. 30 The other prong of Otis, that of an affirmative act of control, poses a more difficult theoretical problem. We address it purely for the sake of argument, as the notion of control in Otis Engineering seems to relate so closely to the master-servant relationship which we have already found inapplicable for law enforcement. In Otis Engineering, as we have noted, the affirmative act of control was held to be sending Matheson home while intoxicated. Without further intervention by Otis, this order was tantamount to putting him on the road in a dangerous condition. Here, by contrast, the park rangers merely failed to deny Landry the opportunity to drive while intoxicated by not arresting him or taking away his car keys. Compare Moore, supra. One of them told him not to drive for an hour and a half and threatened an arrest warrant if he ignored that advice. Landry was on the beach, with plenty of room to relax and no clear need to travel. Thus, the officers' actions by no means foreordained that Landry would drive while still seriously intoxicated. The essence of Crider's claim is not an affirmative act of control as in Otis Engineering but the officers' failure to exercise further control by effecting an arrest. Neither the special relationship evident in Otis Engineering nor the affirmative act of control present there can support the imposition of a tort duty upon the park rangers. 31 In his brief, Crider also relies on Sec. 319 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts which provides: 32 One who takes charge of a third person whom he knows or should know to be likely to cause bodily harm to others if not controlled is under a duty to exercise reasonable care to control the third person to prevent him from doing such harm. 33 RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS Sec. 319 (1986). Crider argues that under this section the rangers owed him a duty to restrain Landry. This argument, while initially appealing, cannot withstand analysis. Section 319 does not represent Texas law. Moreover, Section 319 imposes a duty on one who takes charge of a dangerous person. Here, the entire basis of Crider's lawsuit is his claim that the rangers failed to take charge of Landry by failing to arrest him. Section 319 is inapplicable.