Court Opinion

ID: 9789380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:35:44.261377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:44:59.346035
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION BY
BURNS, C.J.
I agree with Part I of the majority opinion. Regarding Part II, I concur. However, I would have reached that result even if Wolsk v. State, 68 Haw. __, 711 P.2d 1300 (1986), did not require affirmance.
“In general, anyone who does an affirmative act is under a duty to others to exercise the care of a reasonable man to protect them against an unreasonable risk of harm to them arising out of the act. The duties of one who merely omits to act are more restricted, and in general are confined to situations where there is a special relation between the actor and the other which gives rise to the duty.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 302 comment a (1965) (emphasis added).
The relation between a possessor of land who holds it open to the public and members of the public who enter in response to his invitation is a special relation. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A(3) (1965). In Hawaii, the relation between a possessor of land and all persons reasonably anticipated to be on the premises is a special relation. See Pickard v. City & County, 51 Haw. 134, 452 P.2d 445 (1969).
In my view, the question of the existence of a duty involves four elements:
*3761. Is defendant a possessor of the premises upon which plaintiff was injured?
2. Is plaintiff a person reasonably anticipated to be on the premises?
3. Did defendant foresee or anticipate or should defendant have foreseen or anticipated in ample time to avert injury that there was an unreasonable risk of that kind of physical harm to the victim?1
4. Is it in the public interest to impose a duty?
The possessor’s duty is to protect persons reasonably anticipated to be on the premises against the unreasonable risk of physical harm.2 In other words, the possessor has no duty to protect such persons where he neither knows nor should know in ample time to avert the harm of an unreasonable risk of physical harm to them. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A comments e and f (1965). Moreover, when deciding whether there was a duty, the situation must be viewed as it existed before the physical harm occurred, not with 20-20 hindsight. Schlegel v. Knoll, 427 S.W.2d 480 (Mo. 1968).
Thus, a reasonable explanation for the result in Wolsk, supra, is that as a matter of law the State did not owe a duty to the campers because it neither knew nor should have known in ample time to avert the harm of an unreasonable risk that the campers would be brutally attacked by unknown assailants. Likewise, in this case, the City did not owe a duty to the golfers because it neither knew nor should have known in ample time to avert the harm of an unreasonable risk that the golfers would be brutally attacked by Kapu and robbed by the Kamas.
As noted in Mitchell v. Branch, 45 Haw. 128, 136, 363 P.2d 969, 975 (1961), “‘[tjhere is normally no reason to anticipate wilful wrongdoing of others. ... In exceptional situations even wilfully wrongful acts of others are normal and expectable.’ Bohlen, Studies in the Law of Torts, (1926), pp. 504, 505.” In my view, neither Wolsk, supra, nor this case involved exceptional situations.

In my view, questions with respect to foreseeability are more appropriately allocable to the issue of whether the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty rather than to the issue of causation. See Annot., 100 A.L.R.2d 942 (1965). The Hawaii Supreme Court has not taken a consistent position on this issue. Compare Hulsman v. Hemmeter Development Corp., 65 Haw. 58, 647 P.2d 713 (1982), with McKenna v. Volkswagenwerk, 57 Haw. 460, 558 P.2d 1018 (1977).

See 57 Am. Jur. 2d Negligence §§ 54-63, 206-208 (1971).