Court Opinion

ID: 9633152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:35:37.583608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:30.227547
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice, dissenting. I dissent. Arkansas law is clear that once one undertakes a duty, “even though gratuitously, [he] may thereby become subject to the duty of acting carefully, if he acts at all.” Haralson v. Jones Truck Lines, 223 Ark. 813, 270 S.W.2d 892 (1954) (citing Glanzer v. Shepard, 233 N.Y. 236, 135 N.E. 275 (1922)). In Haralson, a truck driver named Fulfer gave a truck traveling behind him a signal that it was safe to pass. The following truck, acting on Fulfer’s signal, pulled out into the left-hand lane in order to pass, but in passing, ran over Carl Charles, who was walking down the left side of the road with his back to the trucks. The question presented was that of Fulfer’s negligence in giving the signal. This court noted that, although Fulfer’s truck did not itself come into contact with Charles, Fulfer signaled the trailing vehicle to pass him. It was the fact of that signal — even though Fulfer was under no legal duty to signal at all — that gave rise to Fulfer’s duty to act with ordinary care. Haralson, 223 Ark. at 816-17, 270 S.W.2d at 894-95. Although there remains a gulf between cases involving misfeasance and those in which the defendant is guilty of nonfeasance (or failing to act when one owes a duty to do so), Prosser and Keeton note that liability for nonfeasance has been increasingly recognized over the last century, finding such liability [i]n . . . relationships [in which] the plaintiff is typically in some respect particularly vulnerable and dependent upon the defendant who, correspondingly, holds considerable power over the plaintiff’s welfare. In addition, such relations have often involved some existing or potential economic advantage to the defendant. Fairness in such cases thus may require the defendant to use his power to help the plaintiff, based upon the plaintiff’s expectation of protection, which itself may be based upon the defendant’s expectation of financial gain. W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts, § 56, at 374 (5th ed. 1984). In the instant case, the bank acted as an agent of the insurance company which offered the credit life policy, receiving thirty percent to forty percent of the premiums paid to American Pioneer Life. Although the bank would ordinarily owe no duty to its customers to inform that their insurance policies were about to lapse, it nonetheless assumed such a duty when it adopted its policy of conveying such information to its customers. The establishment of this policy may have been a gratuitous assumption of a duty, but it was a duty nonetheless, and it carries with it the responsibility of acting with care. In addition, the majority says that Ms. Mans’s lack of knowledge of the bank’s policy of informing customers prevents her reliance on that policy. However, her lack of knowledge is irrelevant. The plaintiff in Haralson, with his back to the traffic, was unaware that one truck driver had just signaled another that it was safe to pass, yet this court found a duty existed. Thus, in the circumstances now before us, it did not matter that Ms. Mans may have had no knowledge of the bank’s policy. Because I am of the opinion that the bank undertook a duty toward Ms. Mans, I would reverse the trial court’s granting of a directed verdict and remand for a new trial.