Opinion ID: 2546070
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Did Piekarski Exercise the Necessary Care?

Text: A bailee has the duty to exercise the degree of care of a reasonably careful owner. [12] The care that is reasonable will necessarily depend on the particular circumstances of each bailment. [13] The risks Piekarski's home presented are relevant to the precautions Piekarski had to take to protect Coster's jewelry. The record contains contradictory evidence about the safety of Coster's jewelry in Piekarski's home. There was evidence that Piekarski, before leaving the state, took precautions to safeguard his home. He locked his house and chained King, his Rottweiler, outside. He asked his neighbor to care for the dog and watch over the house. In his affidavit, Piekarski discussed his neighborhood's safety: I have lived in the neighborhood for approximately 25 years, and I have never known there to be a burglary, robbery or other similar crime prior to this October 1994 burglary. [14] Coster testified in deposition that Piekarski had told her much the same thing when she agreed to bail her property to him. But she argues on appeal that Piekarski's description was not accurate. She relies on State Farm Insurance documents in the record that indicate that someone attempted to break into a vehicle parked in Piekarski's driveway only a few weeks before Coster moved her jewelry into his home. [15] Relying on the evidence of the alleged vehicular break-in, Coster argues that there were genuine fact disputes about the reasonableness of Piekarski's conduct, barring summary judgment. In essence, she reasons that if Piekarski knew of a vehicular break-in at his home only weeks before accepting the jewelry bailment, a jury might conclude that a reasonably careful owner in those circumstances would have taken greater precautions to protect valuable by jewelry when leaving the state, perhaps by returning it to the owner, giving it to another person for safekeeping, or storing it in a safe deposit box. Whether any additional precautions were necessary beyond those Piekarski took depends largely upon how safe his home was for the storage of valuables. Piekarski argues that Coster is barred from making this argument because she asserts it for the first time on appeal. Coster did not argue in the superior court that the prior break-in had a direct bearing on the reasonableness of Piekarski's precautions. She there argued only that Piekarski had taken inadequate measures because she believed he had taken King from the home premises and moved him to a distant fishing lodge. The superior court, considering her narrow argument, concluded that her unsupported speculation that King had been removed was insufficient to overcome direct evidence that King had been staked at the home at all relevant times. It therefore did not err in holding, based on her argument, that Coster's negligence claim fails. Having concluded in Part III.B that it was error to hold on summary judgment that the loss was beyond Piekarski's control, it is necessary to remand for further proceedings. We consequently also conclude that Coster should not be foreclosed from asserting her new appellate negligence theory on remand. Absent a showing of undue prejudice resulting from her failure to raise this argument in the superior court, there is no obvious reason why her prior failure to preserve the issue for the appellate court should finally bar her from raising this issue on remand to the trial court. Piekarski has not claimed any prejudice in having to respond to this argument on appeal. [16] The argument she now raises for the first time is not inherently inconsistent with her former argument; indeed, it is grounded in the basic elements of any bailment case, and relies solely on facts within the record. [17] The claim might have convinced the superior court to deny summary judgment to Piekarski on the due care issue. At least the claim is sufficiently plausible that we decline to hold that the law-of-the-case doctrine somehow prevents Coster from asserting it on remand or makes the summary judgment on the due care issue final. The superior court will have the first opportunity to give substantive consideration to this claim; this means that the appellate court is not granting relief on a ground the trial court never had an opportunity to consider.