Court Opinion

ID: 9715943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:20:47.156857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:40.129700
License: Public Domain

VAIDIK, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur that the Center owes a duty of care to Lane but disagree with the reasoning the majority uses to reach this conclusion. I, however, respectfully disagree that the acts of the Center as a matter of law were not the proximate cause of Lane's injuries.
As to the issue of duty, the analytical approach detailed in NIPSCO v. Sharp, 790 N.E.2d 462 (Ind.2003), controls; namely, there is no need for this court to determine whether a duty exists where the element of duty has already been declared or otherwise articulated by caselaw. Id. at 465. It is well-established that "[Mand-owners have a duty to take reasonable precautions to protect their invitees from foreseeable criminal attacks." - Paragon Family Rest. v. Bartolini, 799 N.E.2d 1048, 1052 (Ind.2008). Therefore, the majority's lengthy analysis of the existence of the Center's duty is unnecessarily complex. The fact that I reach the same result as the majority-that the Center owes a duty to its patients to take reasonable precautions to protect them from foreseeable criminal attacks-illustrates a point made in a recent law review article authored by Justice Boehm: "[The result in a given case is usually unaffected by choice of methodology." Hon. Theodore R. Bochm, A Tangled Webb-Reexamining the Role of Duty in Indiana Negligence Actions, 37 Ind. L.Rev. 1, 19 (2004).
I respectfully dissent as to the majority's conclusion that summary judgment was appropriate on the grounds that there *275was no proximate cause as a matter of law. I believe that there are genuine issues of material fact on the issue of proximate cause. The majority found that the actions of the Center were not the proximate cause of Lane's injuries because D.G.'s actions were the superceding, intervening cause of the harm and because D.G.'s actions were not foreseeable.
Proximate cause, at a minimum, requires that the injury would not have occurred but for the defendant's conduct. Bartolini, 799 N.E.2d at 1054. Additionally, the injury must be a natural and probable consequence, foreseeable under the cireumstances before a proximate cause determination can be made. Id. As the majority states, the foreseeability requirement for proximate cause imposes the same limitations on lability as does the superceding or intervening cause doe-trine. See id. at 1055. The doctrine adds nothing to the requirement of foreseeability that is not already inherent in the requirement of causation. Id. Generally, proximate cause is an issue of fact for the jury. Orban v. Krull, 805 N.E.2d 450, 454 (Ind.Ct.App.2004).
In this case, the designated evidence demonstrates that the Center was on notice of "a higher potential for violence to occur [in the Emergency Department] than in other areas of the hospital." Appellant's App. p. 45. The Emergency Department was designed to be staffed with a sworn police officer, but at times other members of the Center's security staff would help out. Id. The designated evidence also shows that the attack was stopped only by Lane's son-in-law, Appel-lee's Supp. App. p. 6, and that the assailant was taken away by a nurse after the attack. Id. at 7.
While evidence was presented that both Lane and her son-in-law were "surprised" by the attack, id. at 4, 9, this does not establish conclusively that the attack was foreseeable or that it was not. Many acts of violence happen suddenly, and many victims are undoubtedly surprised when they are victimized. Furthermore, it is conceivable that a trained security officer stationed in or near the emergency room would have been able to prevent the attack by picking up on warning signs of an imminent attack or an unstable individual, by springing to action more quickly than a lay bystander, or by deterring potential assailants. The fact that the victim in this case was surprised does not necessarily mean that the attack was unforeseeable to the Center. On the other hand, the fact that the assailant was stopped only by Lane's son-in-law, not a security officer from the Center, see id. at 6, does not necessarily mean that the attack was a natural and probable consequence of the failure of the Center to provide security in Lane's proximity. It may be that no security officer or system would have been able to prevent the attack on Lane. In any event, whether the Center's acts proximately caused Lane's injuries-that is, whether the injury was foreseeable under the circumstances-is a question of fact for the jury.
Therefore, I dissent from the majority's conclusion that summary judgment was appropriate.