Court Opinion

ID: 9584476
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:48:40.852647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:56.499180
License: Public Domain

Judge MARTIN (Harry C.)
concurring in the result.
I agree with the result reached by Judge Wells in holding that the summary judgment in favor of defendants John C. Crumpton and Carol Crumpton should be affirmed. Carol Crump-ton separated from John Crumpton in May 1978 and moved out of the house. John Crumpton, Jr. and his sister, Kimberly, continued to live at home with their father. The three other children were with Carol. From May 1978 until the rape on 28 June 1978, Carol Crumpton did not have day-to-day custody and control of John, Jr. She had neither the power nor the duty during this time period to exercise control over him. On the night in question, she was at the beach, far removed from Chapel Hill. The materials presented at the summary judgment hearing fail to disclose any evidence of negligence by Carol Crumpton. Langford v. Shu, 258 N.C. 135, 128 S.E. 2d 210 (1962); Lane v. Chatham, 251 N.C. 400, 111 S.E. 2d 598 (1959).
As to the claim against John Crumpton, the materials before the court on the motion for summary judgment fail to support a finding that he was actionably negligent. There was no evidence that a sexual assault by John, Jr. was foreseeable. Although John, Jr.’s propensities toward aberrant behavior were all too well known to his father, there is no indication from the record that the child had exhibited any propensity for acts similar to that now under consideration. In Bowen v. Mewborn, 218 N.C. 423, 11 S.E. 2d 372 (1940), on facts more compelling than in the present *409case, the Court held upon demurrer that the allegations failed to establish the foreseeability of the son’s actions. In that case the defendant father had actually encouraged his son to engage in illicit intercourse, and the son thereafter committed a sexual assault on the plaintiff. There was no evidence that the “unnatural and vicious advice” was given close enough in time to the act to establish a cause and effect relationship. Although foreseeability is an element of proximate cause, it does not import that the particular injury should have been foreseeable, but does require that consequences of a generally injurious nature might have been expected. White v. Dickerson, Inc., 248 N.C. 723, 105 S.E. 2d 51 (1958). In order to survive the motion for summary judgment, plaintiff must present a forecast of evidence to support a finding that the result in question was reasonably foreseeable as a proximate result of negligent conduct. Bowen, supra. This she failed to do.
The majority opinion would eliminate the negligent failure of a parent to exercise reasonable control over a child as a basis for recovery against such parent. In this I cannot concur. The law is well settled in North Carolina that a parent may be liable in damages for failure to exercise the power of control which he has over his children where he knows, or in the exercise of due care should know, that injury to another is a probable consequence. In the last analysis, the test is whether the parent exercised reasonable care under all the circumstances. Langford, supra; Lane, supra. This is also the general rule in the United States. See Restatement of Torts 2d § 316 (1965); 67A C.J.S. Parent & Child § 125 (1978); 59 Am. Jur. 2d Parent and Child § 133 (1971); 155 A.L.R. 85 (1945).
In short, the law may impose liability upon a parent for harm proximately caused by negligence of the parent in failing to exercise proper control over his child, but in the present case, plaintiff has failed to carry the burden in response to the summary judgment motion.