Court Opinion

ID: 9577608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:36:26.487785+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:55.917924
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J.,
dissenting in part.
While I agree with the majority opinion regarding the issue of damages and the evidence relating to it, I dissent from that portion of the opinion pertaining to the issue of liability.
The majority correctly observes that in reviewing the district court’s summary judgment holding the Nebraska Department of Social Services liable to Terry A. Talle, the evidence must be *27viewed in a light most favorable to the department, and that the department must be given the benefit of all reasonable inferences deducible from the evidence. Viewed in this light, the evidence is that Talle encountered ever more violent physical and verbal abuse from her ward, Ronald Heinen, from January until October 1990, when Heinen was forced to leave the Talles’ home.
Thus, for 10 months, Talle knew that Heinen’s behavior presented an escalating threat to her health. She obviously knew as well that he was under psychiatric care because she took him to his psychotherapist and consulted with the psychotherapist about his abusive behavior. Nonetheless, rather than exercise her contractual option to put Heinen out of her home, she continued to act as his foster parent and later on as his guardian. And when she did have Heinen removed, she did so not because of his actions toward her, but because of his assaults on others. Surely the law can expect that at some point, one, as a matter of fact, becomes responsible for one’s own well-being!
While I cannot, and do not, condone governmental lying, no matter how pervasive it may have become, neither can I condone, as a matter of law, Talle’s actions in maintaining the status quo in her own household for so protracted a period of time, regardless of how much the department entreated her to do so. I submit that although the evidence need not necessarily have led a fact finder to determine that Talle had assumed the risk of her injuries, the evidence would certainly support such a factual finding if such were made. However, that is not for this court to decide. On a motion for summary judgment, the question is not how a factual issue is to be decided, but whether any real issue of material fact exists. Maloley v. Shearson Lehman Hutton, Inc., 246 Neb. 701, 523 N.W.2d 27 (1994).
Because a question of fact exists as to whether Talle assumed the risk of her injuries, the granting of summary judgment on the issue of liability was erroneous.
Connolly, J., joins in this dissent.