Court Opinion

ID: 9533745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:34:17.599737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:09.630249
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring in result.
I concur in the result of Justice Dickson’s opinion. I write separately because the opinion uses language that appears to vary from the test for legal duty enunciated in Webb v. Jarvis, 575 N.E.2d 992 (Ind.1991). Webb v. Jarvis requires that a court must balance the factors of relationship, foreseeability, and public policy. Id. at 995 (“[OJur analysis must examine each of these three factors in order to determine if [defendant] owed [plaintiff] a duty.”). In contrast, the opinion here says that, in determining whether a legal duty exists, a court “may ... consider” the relationship of the parties and “various other factors” including reasonable foreseeability of harm and public policy concerns.
While using different language, today’s opinion in no way rejects the Webb v. Jarvis test, which I believe continues to provide a clear but not overly rigid framework for trial courts to use in conducting duty analysis. For some time now, it has provided a consistent and predictable set of rules for our law of duty. See Rice v. Strunk, 670 N.E.2d 1280, 1284 (Ind.1996) (attorney for partnership’s duty to individual partners); Heck v. Robey, 659 N.E.2d 498, 502 n. 3 (Ind.1995) (paramedic’s duty to accident victim); Hooks SuperX v. McLaughlin, 642 N.E.2d 514, 517 (Ind.1994) (pharmacist’s duty to customer); Mullin v. Municipal City of South Bend, 639 N.E.2d 278, 283 (Ind.1994) (city’s duty to dispatch ambulance to residential fire); Walker v. Rinck, 604 N.E.2d 591, 594 (Ind. 1992) (physician’s duty to patient); Stump v. Commercial Union, 601 N.E.2d 327, 332 (Ind.1992) (employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier’s duty to employee).