Court Opinion

ID: 9850342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:55:45.601773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:35.680199
License: Public Domain

BUTTLER, P. J.,
dissenting.
The question is whether a school district has a duty to protect its students from criminal acts of third persons over whom the district has no control, one and one-half hours before school starts. That question is one of law for the court. The majority answers it by stating that defendant had a duty because of “its position as a possessor of land held open to the public and from its special relationship with the students who attend defendant’s school,” 78 Or App at 611, relying on Restatement (Second) Torts § 344 (1965). Because I disagree, I dissent.
That section of the Restatement, by its terms, is applicable to businesses, and the cases that have relied on it have involved business establishments and business invitees. See Brown v. J.C. Penney Co., 297 Or 695, 688 P2d 811 (1984); Uihlein v. Albertson’s, Inc., 282 Or 631, 580 P2d 1014 (1978); Whelchel v. Strangways, 275 Or 297, 550 P2d 1228 (1976); Torres v. United States Nat. Bank, 65 Or App 207, 670 P2d *615230, rev den 296 Or 237 (1983). The majority would extend the duty imposed on private businesses to public schools simply by stating that the relationship between a public school and its students is analogous to that between a business and its customers. 78 Or App at 611 n 1. However, I do not believe that public schools are analogous to private business establishments, which exist to earn a profit. Public schools exist because the Oregon Constitution requires the legislature to establish them. Art VIII, § 3. Their purpose is not to make money and, on a strictly economic basis, they cost the taxpayers money to operate. Their function is a loftier one that is considered essential in this democratic society — to educate all of the educable persons of school age within the district. The benefit is to the students and to society in general, not to the public school.
The apparent rationale of the Restatement and the cases following it is that one who possesses land for business purposes is under a greater duty to those who are invited to enter for a purpose connected with business dealings with the possessor. Restatement (Second) Torts, § 332(3), comments a and e;1 § 344. In other words, the possessor has an economic *616motive in possessing the land and in inviting patrons to enter. Under § 344, that greater duty may include requiring the possessor to use reasonable care to protect business visitors from intentionally harmful acts of third persons. Because those economic factors are lacking here, that rationale for extending the duty of the possessor of land is inapplicable.
Concededly, a public school has such a relationship with its students that it has a duty to use reasonable care to protect them from reasonably foreseeable harm that arises while they are engaged in recognized school activities, on or off the school premises. Morris v. Douglas Co. S.D. No. 9, 241 Or 23, 403 P2d 775 (1965); Grant v. Lake Oswego Sch. Dist. No. 7, 15 Or App 325, 515 P2d 947 (1973), rev den (1974); Summers v. Milwaukie Union H.S., 4 Or App 596, 481 P2d 369 (1971). That is, there exists the general duty to exercise due care during the times that the student relationship exists. I know of no Oregon cases that have imposed that duty when the injury occurs during a time when school is not in session and the student is not engaged in school activities. See Sanderlin v. Central School Dist. 13J, 6 Or App 429, 487 P2d 1399, rev den (1971) (a school district does not have a duty to deliver each child to his home in such a manner that he would not be required to cross a street).
Plaintiff was raped after she was dropped off at school at 6:50 a.m. for the convenience of her mother and herself, about one and one-half hours before school started. If we are to impose the greater duty on defendant that has been imposed on possessors of business premises, we need to break new ground. Accordingly, we must start afresh with the policy considerations that go into deciding whether a legal duty will be imposed. The question is one of law for the court. Dewey v. A. F. Klaveness & Co., 233 Or 515, 379 P2d 560 (1963). Some of the factors to be considered are mentioned in Brennen v. City of Eugene, 285 Or 401, 591 P2d 719 (1979), and Mezyk v. National Repossessions, 241 Or 333, 405 P2d 840 (1965). There are others, as well.2
*617First, there are the administrative and economic factors. Presumably, defendant could adopt and enforce rules prohibiting students from arriving before a given time before school started. A rule would be easy enough to adopt, although it might cause inconvenience to many students and parents and could exacerbate the problem if students who arrived early were compelled to wait outside. Enforcement of the rule would require either additional personnel or longer hours for existing employes; it takes one custodian about 45 minutes to open all of the doors. As things stood at the time, defendant was precluded by the collective bargaining agreement from requiring teachers to be on duty before 8:15 a.m., at which time the halls were patrolled. Given the economic plight of many school districts, the wisdom of the court’s imposing this additional economic and administrative burden on them is highly questionable. In other words, the extent of the burden it would impose on defendant and the consequences to the community of doing so may be disproportionate to the increase in protection afforded the students. See Prosser and Keeton, Torts, 359, § 53 (5th ed 1984).
Second, we should consider how closely connected defendant’s conduct was to the injury suffered, not to resolve causation, which would not be relevant in the absence of duty, but to evaluate the burden of imposing a duty against the likelihood of avoiding the injury by doing so. If we impose a duty here, defendant, in order to avoid the risk of breaching that duty, might consider it necessary to remove all shrubs on its 34-acre site that are capable of concealing a felon. It might also feel obligated to light all areas where shadows might conceal an assailant in the dark and to provide security patrols to cover the entire school grounds. Although plaintiff alleged that defendant breached its duty in some of those respects, the majority agrees that those allegations were properly withdrawn from jury consideration, because there was no causal connection between them and the assault in this case. However, the facts in another case might make that connection.
The duty might also be breached by a failure to give a *618warning adequate to enable the students to avoid the harm. An adequate warning in this kind of case, compared to one where the danger consists of a dangerous physical condition of the premises, is difficult to imagine. Although the burden of requiring a warning would be slight, it seems to me that the likelihood of avoiding the harm during daylight by informing the students of the rape of a non-student on the school grounds at 4 a.m., when it was dark, 15 days earlier is not very great. In other words, as I view our function in deciding whether defendant had a duty to plaintiff to protect her from the harm she suffered, we consider whether the supposed duty to inform was sufficiently closely connected to the injury that we should, as a matter of policy, impose that duty on defendant in this case. I would not think so.
I assume that insurance is available to protect defendant from its liability for torts. See Brennen v. City of Eugene, supra. However, if we impose a duty on defendant, as the majority would, the availability of insurance would be problematical and, at best, it would be very expensive, even though there is a statutory limit to a public body’s liability in tort actions. ORS 30.270. Again, the economic burden on school districts weighs against imposing on them the kind of duty involved here.
Although the majority does not, in considering the duty issue, discuss whether the injury to plaintiff was reasonably foreseeable, that factor is one of the considerations in resolving the policy question. The majority does say that, given defendant’s knowledge of the earlier rape, a jury could find that the attack on plaintiff was reasonably foreseeable, citing Stewart v. Jefferson Plywood Co., 255 Or 603, 469 P2d 783 (1970). In deciding that defendant had a duty to plaintiff, we would have to conclude that defendant could have reasonably foreseen3 that plaintiff would be raped on school premises during daylight hours, because there had been a rape of a non-student on its premises several weeks earlier before daylight. Because I think that that conclusion is highly questionable, I *619would hold that, for the purpose of imposing a duty, it was not reasonably foreseeable. Of course, a rape of a female student was possible, either on or off the school grounds, but whether it was any more likely to occur on the school premises because the earlier rape had occurred on the premises, rather than off but immediately adjacent to them, is too conjectural to impose a duty on defendant.
The unfortunate fact is that numerous crimes, including assaults and rapes, occur all over Portland, and it is foreseeable that they will occur and could just as well occur on school premises as anywhere else. Should we impose a higher duty on defendant than we would impose on a city or county?
Considering all of the factors discussed, I would decide that, as a matter of policy, defendant did not have a duty to protect plaintiff from the criminal act of a third person that occurred one and one-half hours before school started when plaintiff was not engaged in, or going to school early to engage in, a recognized school activity.
Accordingly, I would affirm and, therefore, respectfully dissent.

 Restatement (Second) Torts, § 332(3), states:
“A business visitor is a person who is invited to enter or remain on land for a purpose directly or indirectly connected with business dealings with the possessor of the land.”
Comment a states:
“ ‘Invitee’ is a word of art, with a special meaning in the law. This meaning is more limited than that of ‘invitation’ in the popular sense, and not all of those who are invited to enter upon land are invitees. A social guest may be cordially invited, and strongly urged to come, but he is not an invitee. (See § 330, Comment h.) Invitees are limited to those persons who enter or remain on land upon an invitation which carries with it an implied representation, assurance, or understanding that reasonable care has been used to prepare the premises, and make them safe for their reception. Such persons fall generally into two classes: (1) those who enter as members of the public for a purpose for which the land is held open to the public; and (2) those who enter for a purpose connected with the business of the possessor. The second class are sometimes called business visitors; and a business visitor is merely one kind of invitee. There are many visitors, such as customers in shops, who may be placed in either class.”
Comment e states:
“Business visitors fall into two classes. The first class includes persons who are invited to come upon the land for a purpose connected with the business for which the land is held open to the public, as where a person enters a shop to make a purchase, or to look at goods on display. As is stated in §§ 344 and 359, there are occasional instances where a possessor may be under a greater duty to those who enter as invited members of the public. * * *”

 In Vu v. Singer Co., 538 F Supp 26, 29 (ND Cal 1981), the court listed these factors:
“(1) [Fjoreseeability of harm to plaintiff; (2) degree of certainty that plaintiff suffered injury; (3) closeness of connection between defendant’s conduct and injury suffered; (4) moral blame attached to defendant’s conduct; (5) policy of *617preventing future harm; (6) extent of burden to defendant and the consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach; and (7) availability, costs, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.”

 The majority quotes from Stewart v. Jefferson Plywood. Co., supra, and relies on that language to conclude that plaintiffs injury was reasonably foreseeable. Although I do not quarrel with that reliance, I am not sure whether that case requires that there be a “reasonable likelihood” of harm or whether it requires only that in “making an inventory of the possibilities of harm which his conduct might produce,” a person would not have expected the injury to occur. It would make a difference.