Court Opinion

ID: 9727410
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:35:16.365251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:37.205833
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(concurring, with whom Lynch, J., joins). I agree with the result reached by the court. I also agree that, because the beer which caused Jordan’s intoxication and the plaintiffs’ injuries was not provided by the defendant, the defendant did not owe the plaintiffs or other travelers on the highway a duty to prevent Jordan’s drunkenness or to protect the plaintiffs from Jordan’s drunken driving. No duty existed because, in the absence of either a statute creating such a duty or a special relationship recognized by the common law, no person owes to another a duty to prevent the harmful consequences of a condition or situation he or she did not create. We owe to everyone a duty not to act in such a way as to put him or her at risk unreasonably, but ordinarily we do not owe others a duty to take action to rescue or protect them from conditions we have not created. Jean W. v. Commonwealth, 414 Mass. 496, 519-520 (1993) (O’Connor, J., concurring). A recognition of that fundamental principle, not alluded to in the court’s opinion, is critical to the development and maintenance of sound negligence law in this *297Commonwealth. I write separately because, in my view, the court’s opinion should make clear, but does not, that the basic reason that the defendant in this case did not owe the plaintiffs a duty of care for their safety is that, because he had no control over the beer supply and therefore neither served nor made the beer available, the defendant took no action that exposed the plaintiffs to harm. Therefore, no duty to the plaintiffs arose.