Court Opinion

ID: 9744193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:56:39.554279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:47.370583
License: Public Domain

FRIEDLANDER, Judge,
dissenting.
I believe that the trial court was correct in entering summary judgment in favor of PSI and respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion to the contrary.
The majority concludes that PSI owed a duty to the appellants under the due precaution exception to the general rule providing that a contraetee owes no duty to an independent contractor. In my view, that exception does not apply here.
Our supreme court has explained the due precaution exception as follows:
The essence of this exception is the foreseeability of the peculiar risk involved in the work and of the need for special precautions. The exception applies where, at the time of the making of the contract, a principal should have foreseen that the performance of the work or the conditions under which it was to be performed would, absent precautionary measures, probably cause injury.
Application of this fourth exception to the plaintiffs claim thus requires an examination of whether, at the time [a party] was employed as an independent contractor, there existed a peculiar risk which was reasonably foreseeable and which recognizably called for precautionary measures.
Bagley v. Insight Communications Co., L.P., 658 N.E.2d 584, 588 (Ind.1995) (citations omitted).
I depart from the majority’s analysis with respect to the factual similarity that must exist between the danger which must have been foreseen and the incident that actually occurred. I believe the danger that the con-tractee must foresee in order to fit within the fourth exception must be substantially similar to the accident that produced the complained-of injury. I note in this regard the particularity with which the court in Jones v. Indianapolis Power & Light Co., 158 Ind. App. 676, 304 N.E.2d 337, 346 (1973) recited the facts of the incident in affirming summary judgment in favor of the defendant:
There was no evidence that, at the time Ipalco contracted with Combustion, Ipaleo could foresee or should have foreseen that the limit control switch atop a man and materials hoist operated by an independent contractor for exclusive use of its employees would become clogged with ice and snow causing the hoist to stick-and that employees of such independent contractor would undertake to manipulate the *738hoist circuitry so as to cause death or injury.
The undisputed facts of the accident in the instant case are that Carrie and Harper were injured as they were working behind the front cover taking the blades off of a fan. Their injuries were caused when the front cover fell. The front cover fell when an employee of the independent contractor moved a fork lift that was supporting the cover and an attached jig, leaving the cover unsupported. Because the facts are undisputed, in the context of the due precaution exception, the issue is whether PSI should have foreseen that the performance of maintenance and repair work on the exhausters in its power plant would probably result in this particular kind of injury-producing incident unless due precaution was exercised. See Bagley v. Insight Communications Co., L.P., 658 N.E.2d 584.
In summary, consistent with Jones and Bagley, in order to determine whether the requisite foreseeability was present in the instant case, we must ask the following question: At the time of the signing of the contract, could PSI have foreseen that a forklift would fail while it was supporting a jig and front cover, and that a Blount employee would move the forklift, leaving the front cover unsupported, which would then fall and injure someone? In my view, this question must be answered in the negative. I do not believe that this type of occurrence was foreseeable at the time of the signing of the contract. I would affirm the grant of summary judgment in favor of PSI.