Martin v. Marciano

• Decision Date: 27 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2003-561-Appeal.,2003-561-Appeal.
• Citation: 871 A.2d 911
• Parties: Brian MARTIN v. Matthew J. MARCIANO et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

871 A.2d 911

Brian MARTIN v. Matthew J. MARCIANO et al.

No. 2003-561-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

April 27, 2005.

Richard A. Merola, Providence, for Plaintiff.

Patricia A. Buckley, Providence, for Defendant.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., GOLDBERG, SUTTELL, and ROBINSON, JJ.

OPINION

WILLIAMS, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff, Brian Martin (plaintiff), was attacked with a baseball bat while attending a high school graduation party that the defendant-parent, Lee Martin¹ (defendant), hosted in honor of her daughter, Jen Martin (Jen). The plaintiff brought suit against the assailant, Chijoke Okere (Okere), party guest Matthew J. Marciano (Marciano), and the defendant. A Superior Court motion justice granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment,² concluding that the defendant owed no duty to the plaintiff to protect him from Okere's attack. The plaintiff timely appealed.

Based on the evidence before this Court, we are of the opinion that summary judgment was inappropriate. If defendant provided alcoholic beverages to underage partygoers as plaintiff alleges, or had actual knowledge of the presence and consumption of alcohol by underage drinkers on her property, then defendant was duty-bound to exercise reasonable care to protect plaintiff from physical assault by persons expected to be in attendance or those acting at their behest. Whether plaintiff's injuries are causally related to defendant's conduct, or Okere's actions constitute a supervening act, thus breaking the causal link, are unresolved questions of fact to be determined by the fact-finder. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the Superior Court.

I Facts and Travel

In this appeal from a summary judgment, we must resolve factual inconsistencies in favor of the nonmoving party.³ Santiago v. First Student, Inc., 839 A.2d 550, 552 (R.I.2004). As discussed below, defendant asserts, based on the limited nature of the record given the early stage of the proceedings when her motion was filed, that there are no facts in dispute. Our review of the deposition testimony, police reports, pleadings and admissions contained in the record, however, reveals that plaintiff's version of the events does, in fact, differ from defendant's. Therefore, we resolve any inconsistencies in favor of plaintiff.

The record establishes that defendant hosted a high school graduation party for Jen at her home in the City of Warwick on July 9, 2000. A large tent and port-a-john had been rented for the occasion; in the absence of a formal guest list, people were invited through word-of-mouth. The plaintiff arrived at the party with a group of friends at approximately 8 p.m. When he arrived, there were between forty and fifty guests already there, but the number grew to approximately seventy. According to plaintiff, despite the fact that most of the guests were between the ages of seventeen and twenty, two kegs of beer were available when he arrived and many guests supplemented that supply with their own alcohol. The plaintiff said in his deposition testimony that he consumed approximately six beers from the kegs.

Marciano was also among the guests. The plaintiff testified at his deposition that he knew Marciano and, approximately one year before the party, Marciano had punched him in the face "for no reason." At some point during the evening, a fight erupted between Marciano and some of plaintiff's friends. As the fight spilled onto the street, plaintiff's friends threatened to punch Marciano. The plaintiff told Marciano to leave so the situation would defuse and the party could continue. The record discloses that Marciano left the premises but called his friend Okere, intending to return with reinforcements. Significantly, Marciano supplied Okere with a baseball bat.

Approximately half an hour to an hour later, Marciano returned to the party with Okere, who was wielding a baseball bat and asking "Who f----ed with Matt Marciano?" Within minutes of Okere's arrival, plaintiff was struck on the head with the bat that Okere had been holding. Before being hit, plaintiff did not see Okere but he heard that there likely was going to be a fight and saw people "scrambling." According to one witness, after plaintiff was hit, defendant went inside her house and locked the door, excluding people who were looking for paper towels to tend to plaintiff's head injuries. According to his brief, plaintiff suffered considerable brain damage as a result of the injury.

The plaintiff brought the instant action against defendant, as well as Okere and Marciano. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that she owed plaintiff no duty to protect him from an unforeseeable attack on her property or, alternatively, that Okere's actions constituted an intervening act that broke the chain of causation between plaintiff's injuries and any negligence on her part. The motion justice granted summary judgment on the ground that defendant did not have a duty to protect plaintiff because such an attack was unforeseeable.

II Analysis

This Court reviews a grant of summary judgment on a de novo basis, applying the same standards as the motion justice. Santiago, 839 A.2d at 552. We, like the motion justice, review the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor. Id. Summary judgment is appropriate if there are no remaining genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. Because summary judgment is an extreme remedy, we will affirm such a decision only when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as [a] matter of law." Wright v. Zielinski, 824 A.2d 494, 497 (R.I.2003) (quoting Rule 56(c) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure).

A Legal Duty

A legal duty is a question of law that the court alone is authorized to determine. Volpe v. Gallagher, 821 A.2d 699, 705 (R.I.2003). As there is "[n]o clear cut formula" for determining the existence of a duty, the court will make the determination on a case-by-case basis. Id. In so doing, this court" `will consider all relevant factors, including the relationship between the parties, the scope and burden of the obligation to be imposed upon the defendant, public policy considerations,'" id., and the "foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff." Banks v. Bowen's Landing Corp., 522 A.2d 1222, 1225 (R.I.1987).

As a general rule, a landowner has no duty to protect another from harm caused by the dangerous or illegal acts of a third party. Luoni v. Berube, 431 Mass. 729, 729 N.E.2d 1108, 1111 (2000). An exception to this rule exists, however, when a plaintiff and a defendant bear a special relationship to each other. Id. "A special relationship, when derived from common law, is predicated on a plaintiff's reasonable expectations and reliance that a defendant will anticipate harmful acts of third persons and take appropriate measures to protect the plaintiff from harm." Id. One such relationship exists between those who provide intoxicants and those whom they serve. 2 Stuart M. Speiser et al., The American Law of Torts, § 9:20 at 1125 (1985); see also Grisham v. John Q. Long V.F.W. Post, No. 4057 Inc., 519 So.2d 413, 416 (Miss.1988) ("the keeper of a bar or tavern, though not an insurer of his guests' safety, has a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect them from reasonably foreseeable injury at the hands of other patrons").

As a party host who is alleged to have made alcohol illegally⁴ available to underage guests, defendant owed plaintiff "the duty of exercising reasonable care to protect [him] from harm and criminal attack at the hands of fellow [guests] or other third persons." 2 Speiser, § 9:20 at 1125. Although this duty most often has been extended to tavern and barroom operators, see, e.g., Grisham, 519 So.2d at 416; Fisher v. Robbins, 78 Wyo. 50, 319 P.2d 116, 126 (1957), there is no valid justification for absolving an adult parent of this higher standard of care when she knowingly provides alcohol, or is aware that it is available, to underage individuals, for consumption on her property. Indeed, if a barroom patron may "rely on the belief that he is in an orderly house and that its operator, personally or by his delegated representative, is exercising reasonable care to the end that the doings in the house shall be orderly * * *," so too could plaintiff. Fisher, 319 P.2d at 126 (quoting 30 Am. Jur. Intoxicating Liquors § 609 at 575 (1940)).

This Court's holding in Ferreira v. Strack, 652 A.2d 965 (R.I.1995), does not preclude our recognition of defendant's duty to provide protection to her guests in this case. In Ferreira, we held that a social host owed no duty of care to "an innocent third party who suffers injuries as a result of the negligent operation of a motor vehicle by an adult guest if the negligence is caused by the guest's intoxication." Id. at 967. Despite our recognition of the clear public policy against drunk driving, we noted that "[t]he imposition of liability upon social hosts for the torts of guests has such serious implications that any action taken should be taken by the Legislature after careful investigation, scrutiny, and debate." Id. at 968.

The "serious implications" that counseled in favor of judicial restraint in Ferreira are noticeably absent here. Here, defendant is alleged, at most, to have willingly provided alcohol to a group of underage partygoers and, at least, supervised a party at which the underage guests were drinking openly and freely from two kegs of beer. Cf. Ferreira, 652 A.2d at 969-70 (questioning whether the drunk driver even could properly be termed a social guest because the hosts did not invite him to the party, did not know of his presence in their home, and had no opportunity...