Court Opinion

ID: 9705046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:55:29.306999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:08.625845
License: Public Domain

OLSZEWSKI, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
Despite our agreement with the majority’s determination regarding Elizabeth Allen’s duty to protect, we would remand for a new trial on the issue of Elizabeth’s duty to warn.
Eugene Allen sexually abused his three grandchildren, for which he will spend the rest of his life in prison. In this civil *312suit, a jury also found that his acts of molestation constituted intentional torts so outrageous as to merit ten million dollars in punitive damages for each abused child. There can be no question that Eugene Allen’s actions caused enormous damage, and he has been punished commensurately. The question in this appeal is whether his wife Elizabeth can also be held hable because she co-owns the property where the abuse occurred.
Elizabeth Ann Allen is not biologically related to the appellees; she is their step-grandmother. The appellees sued her in negligence, arguing that as co-owner of the property, she had a duty to protect them from dangers on the property— namely, their pedophilie grandfather. The evidence at trial showed that Elizabeth Allen knew or had reason to know of her husband’s sexual tastes and practices. The evidence also showed that she averted her eyes to the abuse taking place in her home. Most decent members of society would no doubt agree that Elizabeth Allen had a moral obligation to do something to protect these children from their grandfather’s acts of molestation.
Moral obligations, however, do not automatically give rise to legal liability. Our law imposes no general duty to rescue, for example. A duty to act ordinarily will not lie absent some special relationship between the party in danger and the party charged with liability. See Restatement (Second) of Torts, §§ 314-20. Here, the trial court allowed the jury to find Elizabeth Allen liable to her step-grandchildren solely because of her status as co-owner of the property where the abuse occurred. We believe that the trial court misstated the nature of her legal duties, and as a result she is entitled to a new trial.
It is still the law in this Commonwealth that “the standard of care a possessor of land owes to one who enters upon the land depends upon whether the person entering is a trespasser, licensee, or invitee.” Carrender v. Fitterer, 503 Pa. 178, 183-185, 469 A.2d 120, 123 (1983). Appellees concede that with respect to Elizabeth Allen, they were licensees. Appellees’ brief at 19. Indeed, Elizabeth Allen never invited them *313onto the property, nor was she even present when the acts of abuse occurred. R.R. 1039a, 1044-46a, 1172-73a, 1196a, 1273-74a, 1315a. At most, Allen merely knew of their presence on the property, and acquiesced.
The trial court instructed the jury that as a property owner, Elizabeth Allen had a duty to protect appellees from the criminal acts of third parties. Specifically, the court charged:
... With regard to the duty owed by a property owner— now, this would be pertinent in the case against Elizabeth Ann Allen — you should know the following:
An owner of the premises, the property, has a duty to use reasonable care, reasonable care to eliminate any danger to minors who are on the premises with permission, or to protect said minors from any person the owner knows or should know poses a danger to the minors on the premises.
R.R. 1508a. We believe that this instruction correctly expresses the duties that a possessor of property owes to invitees, but not licensees. For gratuitous licensees like appellees, we think the most Elizabeth Allen could be legally required to do was to warn them of their potential peril.
I.
It is a fair statement of the law that a landowner has a duty to make his premises safe for invitees, including a duty to protect invitees from the criminal or tortious conduct of third persons. Murphy v. Penn Fruit Co., 274 Pa.Super. 427, 418 A.2d 480 (1980); Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 344. If Elizabeth Allen had been offering piano lessons in her home, then it would not have sufficed to merely warn her young students: “Watch out for my husband — he’s a pedophile and might molest you.” Rather, Allen would either have to make her home safe for her students, or find another place to teach lessons.
Liability for the acts of third parties extends only to invitees, however. There is no general rule which holds landowners liable to licensees for the criminal or tortious acts of third parties. Feld v. Merriam, 506 Pa. 383, 485 A.2d 742 (1984). *314A landowner may well be liable to licensees for dangerous “conditions on the land.” See id.; Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 342. Indeed, for certain dangerous conditions, liability will extend even to trespassing children. Id. at § 343B (the attractive nuisance doctrine). In the context of a landlord’s liability to his tenants, our Supreme Court in Feld thoughtfully distinguished between conditions on the land and acts of third parties:
The threshold question is whether a landlord has any duty to protect tenants from the foreseeable criminal acts of third persons, and if so, under what circumstances. Well settled law holds landlords to a duty to protect tenants from injury rising out of their negligent failure to maintain their premises in a safe condition____ The criminal acts of a third person belong to a different category and can bear no analogy to the unfixed radiator, unlighted steps, falling ceiling, or the other myriad possibilities of one’s personal negligence. To render one liable for the deliberate criminal acts of unknown third persons can only be a judicial rule for given limited circumstances.
Feld, 506 Pa. at 390, 485 A.2d at 745 (citations omitted). Our high court went on to reaffirm its adoption of section 344 of the Restatement, that landowners can be liable to invitees for the criminal or tortious acts of third parties, but not to licensees. Id.
Since her step-grandchildren were licensees, Elizabeth Allen had no duty to protect them from the independent tortious acts of her husband. Nor was her husband a “condition on the land” which could trigger a duty to protect or warn the minor-appellees, regardless of their entry status. As the trial court noted, other jurisdictions have seen fit to erase the distinction between invitees and licensees, e.g. Anaya v. Turk, 151 Cal.App.3d 1092, 199 Cal.Rptr. 187 (1984), or between third parties and conditions on the land, e.g. Jobe v. Smith, 159 Ariz. 36, 764 P.2d 771 (1988); trial court opinion, 2/28/94 at 33. So far, our high court has not followed suit. Until it does, we are bound to observe these well-established distinctions.
*315Moreover, we believe there is still good reason for maintaining these distinctions. When one considers how Elizabeth Allen might attempt to discharge a duty to protect the appellees, the wisdom of the invitee/lieensee distinction becomes apparent. Elizabeth Allen could not call the sheriff to eject her husband because Eugene Allen co-owned the property. Nor could she necessarily assert any control over her husband’s activities. Cf. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 318 (possessor of land may have a duty to control licensees, and prevent them from harming others). Nor could Elizabeth prevent the appellees from accepting their grandfather’s invitations to visit. As co-owner, Eugene had every right to invite appellees onto the property, and Elizabeth had no lawful power to exclude them. See, e.g., McGowan v. Bailey, 179 Pa. 470, 36 A. 325 (1897); 14 P.L.E. § 45.
If a business owner cannot insure the safety of her patrons, she has the option of closing up shop and moving to a new location. A landowner can simply stop inviting the public onto dangerous property, and thus avoid having to insure invitees against the potential torts of third parties. Imposing a duty to protect licensees upon a landowner who lacks the power to do so would effectively make the landowner an involuntary insurer of the licensees’ safety. The law cannot reasonably demand that a landowner protect the safety of people whom she cannot exclude, against dangers she cannot eliminate. Yet that is precisely the duty which the trial court’s instruction imposed on Elizabeth Allen.
II.
Appellees also argue that Elizabeth Allen owed them a duty of care by virtue of a special relationship, but nowhere state precisely what this relationship is. The sum of appellees’ argument is that they were children, while Allen was an adult with knowledge of the peril posed by their grandfather. Appellees’ brief at 27.
The question of when one has a duty to protect others is discussed in the Restatement (Second) of Torts, §§ 314-20. *316Appellees were not related to Elizabeth Allen, were never in her custody, and she never assumed any responsibility towards their protection. Appellees do not cite, nor are we aware of any Pennsylvania caselaw which recognizes a special relationship between adults and children generally, such that an adult with knowledge of a particular danger must act to protect any child subject to that danger.
The Restatement, however, does not speak kindly of the rule that people have no obligation to help others, absent a special relationship:
The result of the rule has been a series of older decisions to the effect that one human being, seeing a fellow man in dire peril, is under no legal obligation to aid him, but may sit on the dock, smoke his cigar, and watch the other drown. Such decisions have been condemned by legal writers as revolting to any moral sense, but thus far they remain the law. It appears inevitable that, sooner or later, such extreme cases of morally outrageous and indefensible conduct will arise that there will be further inroads upon the older rule.
Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 314 comment c. We believe that this is such a case.
The concept of duty is constantly evolving. Our high court has recognized that duties are not entirely constrained by prior caselaw, but may respond to current policy considerations:
In determining the existence of a duty of care, it must be remembered that the concept of duty amounts to no more than “the sum total of those considerations of policy which led the law to say that the particular plaintiff is entitled to protection” from the harm suffered. To give it any greater mystique would unduly hamper our system of jurisprudence in adjusting to the changing times. The late Dean Prosser expressed this view as follows:
These are shifting sands, and no fit foundation. There is a duty if the court says there is a duty; the law, like the Constitution, is what we make it. Duty is only a word with which we state our conclusion that there is or is not to be *317liability; it necessarily begs the essential question.... In the decision whether or not there is a duty, many factors interplay: The hand of history, our ideas of morals and justice, the convenience of administration of the rule, and our social ideas as to where the loss should fall. In the end the court will decide whether there is a duty on the basis of the mores of the community, “always keeping in mind the fact that we endeavor to make a rale in each case that will be practical and in keeping with the general understanding of mankind.”
Gardner by Gardner v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 524 Pa. 445, 454-55, 573 A.2d 1016, 1020 (1990) (quoting Sinn v. Burd, 486 Pa. 146, 164, 404 A.2d 672, 681 (1979)).
Just because there is no Pennsylvania precedent for imposing any duty upon Elizabeth Allen does not mean that this must be the rule in this case. The facts of this ease strongly implicate “our ideas of morals and justice” and “the mores of the community.” Appellees, while mere licensees, were children. They were particularly ill-equipped to recognize and deal with the danger posed by their grandfather. The bizarre details of Eugene Allen’s pedophilie practices which came out at trial demonstrate the exceptional magnitude of this danger. Also, Elizabeth Allen had first-hand knowledge of her husband’s pedophilie practices. These weighty factors must coalesce into some kind of duty.
While we believe that our law cannot and should not impose upon Elizabeth Allen the unworkable duty of protecting her step-grandchildren, we think the law can and should impose a duty to warn them of their grandfather’s known propensity for sexually abusing children. Accord Pamela L. v. Farmer, 112 Cal.App.3d 206, 169 Cal.Rptr. 282 (1980) (where wife knew that her husband was a sex offender and was inviting minors home while she was at work, wife had a duty to warn minor licensees of the danger).
III.
The trial court went further, however, and instructed the jury that Elizabeth Allen had a duty to protect her step-*318grandchildren. As we have set forth, such a duty goes too far. It was error to instruct the jury that Elizabeth Allen was legally required to do something which she was not legally empowered to do, and which sound rules of well-established law do not countenance. The most the trial court should have charged is that Elizabeth Allen had a duty to warn her step-grandchildren or their mother of the danger posed by their grandfather.
Nor can we consider the court’s instruction harmless error. On the basis of the court’s erroneous instruction, the jury apportioned the negligence 80% to Eugene Allen, 15% to Deborah Allen (the appellees’ mother), and only 5% to Elizabeth Allen. R.R. 1508a. Despite being told that Elizabeth Allen had a duty to protect the appellees, the jury still found their mother Deborah to be more culpable than Elizabeth. Had the jury been properly instructed that Elizabeth only had a duty to warn Deborah Allen and her children of Eugene’s pedophilia, it may have found her less culpable yet, or even entirely blameless. Accordingly, we would vacate the judgment against Elizabeth Allen and remand for a new trial.
TAMILIA, J., joins.