Opinion ID: 2551874
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Duty Instruction

Text: During trial there was much disagreement about the jury instruction on the duty owed by Newman to the athletes. Plaintiffs argued Newman owed special duties involving supervision, instruction, warning, a safe place or premises for the required activity, and safe equipment. Newman argued that it owed a general duty of ordinary care. The district court found no precedent to support the existence of the special duties advocated by plaintiffs. According to the district court, Newman owed the athletes a duty of ordinary care. The district court determined it would give an instruction based on the Pattern Instructions for Kansas (PIK) Civ.3d 103.01. By inadvertence, PIK Civ.3d 103.01 was omitted from the instructions read to the jury. As a result, the jury was instructed on the athletes' duties as pedestrians and Calvert's duty as a driver, but not that Newman owed a duty of ordinary care to Howell and Rothlisberger. Although admitting a mistake, the district court declined to order a new trial. The district court reasoned that the jury understood that Newman owed a duty of care to the athletes because: (1) the instructions included allegations that Newman breached specific duties owed to the athletes, and (2) the jury found Newman 24.8% at fault. Plaintiffs advance two grounds for district court error regarding duty: (1) failing to instruct on duty in general, and (2) refusing to give a special duty of care instruction. Plaintiffs argue the errors prejudiced their cases and entitle them to a new trial. We disagree. We first take up the failure to instruct on a general duty. Neither plaintiff objected to the absence of PIK Civ.3d 103.01 before the jury retired to deliberate. Plaintiffs have not preserved this issue for appeal. See K.S.A. 60-251(b); Hawkinson v. Bennett, 265 Kan 564, Syl. ¶ 5, 962 P.2d 445 (1998). Plaintiffs' second jury instruction argument arises from a claimed special relationship between Newman and the athletes. According to plaintiffs, this special relationship created a duty to provide adequate: (1) supervision, (2) instruction, (3) warning, (4) and equipment, and (5) to provide a safe place/premises for the required activity. Plaintiffs acknowledge that Kansas has not recognized a special relationship between a college and its student athletes. However, plaintiffs invite us to do so and hold Newman to these five specific duties, citing Nero v. Kansas State University, 253 Kan. 567, 861 P.2d 768 (1993). We decline the invitation. Nero involved a sexual assault in a Kansas State University (KSU) dormitory. KSU officials allowed Ramon Davenport, an alleged rapist, to reside in a co-ed residence hall despite Davenport's impending criminal trial for rape of another KSU student. Shana Nero, the victim, sued KSU alleging a special relationship between herself and KSU arising out of the dormitory landlord-tenant relationship. We declined to hold the university-student relationship itself imposes a duty on universities to protect students (an in loco parentis duty). 253 Kan. at 580. Nero holds that a university has a duty to regulate and supervise foreseeable dangers and activities occurring on its property. 253 Kan. 567, Syl. ¶ 5. Plaintiffs argue that the facts here show that Newman exercised a degree of control over the athletes that would allow an extension of the duties espoused in Nero. Plaintiffs arguments are misdirected. They present the issue of Newman's duty as a question of law. Plaintiffs have confused duty with breach. The many cases cited by plaintiffs involve the question of whether a duty exists at all. Newman's duty of care owing to the athletes was not contested in the district court. Newman conceded it owed a duty to the athletes and the case was submitted to the jury. Nonetheless, plaintiffs devote a majority of their briefs urging us to find that a special relationship existed between the athletes and Newman. Plaintiffs' confusion between duty and breach leads them to argue that they were entitled to a jury instruction that Newman breached specific duties (supervision, safe place, etc.). This contention is also misdirected. The pattern jury instructions do not endorse what plaintiffs suggest. Negligence is defined by PIK Civ. 3d 103.01: Negligence is the lack of ordinary care. It is the failure of a person to do something that an ordinary person would do, or the act of a person in doing something that an ordinary person would not do, measured by all the circumstances then existing. PIK Civ.3d 103.01 was requested by Newman, but inadvertently omitted by the district court. However, the exact language of PIK Civ.3d 103.01 was included in the comparative fault instruction. Plaintiffs' contentions of Newman's specific breaches reached the jury. The district court instructed on plaintiffs' contentions. We do not find error in the district court's refusal to give plaintiffs' requested specific duty instructions.