Court Opinion

ID: 9675843
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:07:12.995641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:16.153780
License: Public Domain

KOEHLER, Justice, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion. I disagree that the newspaper had a duty to warn Gutierrez, a free-lance photographer who was assigned to photograph a new hotel in Cd. Juarez, Mexico that it had created a potentially dangerous condition by printing an adverse article about the reputed owner of the hotel, Gilberto Ontiveros.
Did the duty arise because Ontiveros was already dangerous by virtue of being a drug dealer or did the duty arise because the derogatory article made him dangerous, as contended by Gutierrez? In order to find a duty, must we first assume that all drug dealers are dangerous and that the El Paso Herald Post knew or should have known that drug dealers generally were, or Ontiveros specifically was dangerous in the sense that they or he would be apt to assault any reporter who tried to photograph the drug dealer’s property or ask a question. There is no allegation or summary judgment proof suggesting that the Herald Post knew or should have known that Ontiveros was a man of violence or that he had threatened to assault reporters or photographers generally or Herald Post reporters specifically. On the assumption that he was already dangerous, the Herald Post could not make him dangerous by printing the article naming him as a “top drug figure in Juarez today.” Based on that assumption, the newspaper would have had a duty to warn even if no article had been written.
*701Or are we to assume that he was not all that dangerous until the newspaper printed the articles creating a dangerous situation and as a result, the newspaper staff knew or should have known that he had become dangerous (more dangerous)? On the latter assumption, the newspaper would have a duty to warn every time it printed a derogatory article, true or not, about any person, be he a politician, a judge or whoever.
The majority have found a duty to warn arose because the newspaper published the derogatory story about Ontiveros which created a dangerous situation and because it was foreseeable that Ontiveros would react in some violent manner as a result of the derogatory articles, citing among other cases El Chico Corporation v. Poole, 732 S.W.2d 306 (Tex.1987). El Chico is a case where the Court found a common law duty for a liquor licensee not to sell alcoholic beverages to an intoxicated person, the duty being owed to third persons who might be injured by the intoxicated person’s criminal act of driving while intoxicated as well as to the intoxicated person himself. While it is readily foreseeable both by common knowledge and statute that intoxicated persons will commit a criminal act by driving a motor vehicle, it is not common knowledge nor foreseeable that a drug dealer who happened to be a hotel owner and manager would react violently and commit the kind of offenses generally that were committed by Ontiveros on Gutierrez. As stated in El Chico and Nixon v. Mr. Property Management Company, Inc., 690 S.W.2d 546 (Tex.1985), foreseeability does not require that the tortfeasor anticipate the particular accident, but only that he reasonably anticipate the general character of injury. Arguably, the Herald Post should have anticipated that Gutierrez might be ordered off the property but it could not have reasonably anticipated generally the kind of assault and criminal violence that was visited upon him merely by requesting that he photograph the hotel and make some inquiries.
Logically, if the newspaper has a duty to warn an independent contractor such as Gutierrez, it has the same duty to warn its own employees anytime they are sent out on an assignment in which they might come in contact with a person or organization allegedly involved in criminal activities and about whom or which the newspaper has written something derogatory or unkind. All news media organizations would have the same duty to warn under such circumstances.
For the reason stated, I would hold that the newspaper did not have a duty to warn Gutierrez that he might be assaulted and tortured by Ontiveros as a result of the derogatory articles and would thus affirm the summary judgment granted in the newspaper’s favor.