Court Opinion

ID: 9740694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:40:23.74906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:19.794007
License: Public Domain

DICKSON, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the majority opinion with respect to immunity and standard of review. However, I dissent from its discussion and conclusion as to the issue of duty. The legal determination of whether a duty exists in a particular case is not necessarily resolved by recourse to the three factors found useful by this Court in Webb v. Jarvis (1991), Ind., 575 N.E.2d 992. These should not constitute the exclusive tests for duty. Within two months of Webb, this Court contemporaneously recognized the nebulous nature of the concept of duty and the fact that no universal test for it has been formulated. Cowe v. Forum Group, Inc. (1991), Ind., 575 N.E.2d 630.
No better general statement can be made than that the courts will find a duty where, in general, reasonable persons would recognize it and agree that it exists.
Id., citing Gariup Constr. Co., Inc. v. Foster (1988), Ind., 519 N.E.2d 1224, 1227 (quoting W. Prosser & W. Keeton, The Law of Torts *286§ 53, at 359 (5th Ed.1984)). The majority opinion presents an unnecessary and unwise construct. It is better that the common law avoid such artificial and rigid formulations.
I also disagree with the majority's conclusion that the plaintiffs failed to establish the existence of a private duty. To the contrary, the factual averments in this case convince me that reasonable persons would recognize and agree that there exists a duty on the part of the City to exercise reasonable care in the answering of emergency calls from its citizens and in the dispatching of ambulances. I believe that summary judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded for trial.