Bradshaw v. Rawlings, 79-1409

• Decision Date: 17 December 1979
• Docket Number: Nos. 79-1409,No. 79-1412,No. 79-1409,No. 79-1411,No. 79-1410,79-1409,79-1410,79-1411,79-1412,s. 79-1409
• Citation: 612 F.2d 135
• Parties: BRADSHAW, Donald; Cuneo, Alfred and Cuneo, Carole, Appellants,, v. Bruce D. RAWLINGS, Gilbert D. Rawlings, Borough of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Delaware Valley College, Marjorie E. Moyer, t/a Sunny Beverages, Maennerchor Society, Saab Motor Company, (four cases). Appeal of BOROUGH OF DOYLESTOWN.Appeal of DELAWARE VALLEY COLLEGE.Appeal of Marjorie MOYER t/a Sunny Beverages.to 79-1412.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 135

612 F.2d 135

BRADSHAW, Donald; Cuneo, Alfred and Cuneo, Carole Appellants, No. 79-1409, v. Bruce D. RAWLINGS, Gilbert D. Rawlings, Borough of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Delaware Valley College Marjorie E. Moyer, t/a Sunny Beverages Maennerchor Society, Saab Motor Company, (four cases) Appeal of BOROUGH OF DOYLESTOWN. No. 79-1410 Appeal of DELAWARE VALLEY COLLEGE. No. 79-1411 Appeal of Marjorie MOYER t/a Sunny Beverages. No. 79-1412

Nos. 79-1409 to 79-1412.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued Oct. 11, 1979.

Decided Dec. 17, 1979.

Louis Ruprecht (argued), Scotch Plains, N. J., for Donald Bradshaw, et al.

William F. Sullivan, Jr. (argued), Albert J. Schell, Jr., Post & Schell, Philadelphia, Pa., for Borough of Doylestown.

William T. Campbell, Jr. (argued), Swartz, Campbell & Detweiler, Philadelphia, Pa., for Delaware Valley College.

John W. Potkai (argued), Emil F. Toften, Emil F. Toften & Associates, Chalfont, Pa., for Marjorie E. Moyer T/A Sunny Beverages.

G. Thomas Miller, Harvey Freedenberg, McNees, Wallace & Nurick, Harrisburg, Pa., for amici curiae Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Universities and American Council on Education; Sheldon Elliot Steinbach, Gen. Counsel, American Council on Education, Washington, D. C., of counsel.

Before ALDISERT and HUNTER, Circuit Judges, and MEANOR, District Judge. ^*

OPINION OF THE COURT

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.

The major question for decision in this diversity case tried under Pennsylvania law is whether a college may be subject to tort liability for injuries sustained by one of its students involved in an automobile accident when the driver of the car was a fellow student who had become intoxicated at a class picnic. Another question relates to the liability of the distributor who furnished beer for the picnic which led to the intoxication of the driver. Still another question concerns the tort liability of the municipality where the plaintiff's injuries occurred.

The district court permitted the question of negligence to go to the jury against the college, the beer distributor and the municipality. From an adverse verdict of $1,108,067 each of the defendants has appealed, advancing separate arguments for reversal. The plaintiff has filed a conditional cross-appeal. ¹

I.

Donald Bradshaw, an eighteen year old student at Delaware Valley College, was severely injured on April 13, 1975 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, while a backseat passenger in a Saab automobile driven by a fellow student, Bruce Rawlings. ² Both were sophomores and had attended their class picnic at a grove owned by the Maennerchor Society on the outskirts of the borough. ³ Returning to the college from the picnic, Rawlings drove through Doylestown on Union Street. Union Street is colloquially known as "Dip Street" because it was constructed with drainage dips, instead of sewers, to carry surface water runoff. While proceeding through one of the dips, Rawlings lost control of the automobile which then struck a parked vehicle. As a result of the collision Bradshaw suffered a cervical fracture which caused quadriplegia.

The picnic, although not held on college grounds, was an annual activity of the sophomore class. A faculty member who served as sophomore class advisor participated with the class officers in planning the picnic and co-signed a check for class funds that was later used to purchase beer. The advisor did not attend the picnic, nor did he get another faculty member to attend in his place. Flyers announcing the picnic were prominently displayed across the campus. They were mimeographed by the college duplicating facility and featured drawings of beer mugs. Approximately seventy-five students attended the picnic and consumed six or seven half-kegs of beer. The beer was ordered from Marjorie Moyer, trading as Sunny Beverages, by the sophomore class president who was underage.

The legal drinking age in Pennsylvania was, and is, twenty-one years, but the great majority of the students drinking at the picnic were sophomores of either nineteen or twenty years of age. Rawlings had been at the picnic for a number of hours. He testified that he had no recollection of what occurred from the time he left the picnic until after the accident. Bradshaw testified that Rawlings had been drinking and another witness, Warren Wylde, expressed his opinion that Rawlings was under the influence of alcohol when he left the picnic grove. That there was sufficient evidence on the question of Rawlings' intoxication to submit to the jury cannot be seriously questioned.

II.

On appeal, the college argues that Bradshaw failed to present sufficient evidence to establish that it owed him a duty for the breach of which it could be held liable in tort. The district court, apparently assuming that such a duty existed, submitted the question of the college's liability to the jury, stating:

In any event, the college owes a duty to use due care under the circumstances to prevent an unreasonable risk of harm to sophomores who attend a class function. Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 282 and 283 (1965) provide:

§ 282. Negligence Defined

In the Restatement of this Subject, negligence is conduct which falls below the standard established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm. It does not include conduct recklessly disregardful of an interest in others.

§ 283. Conduct of a Reasonable Man:

The Standard

Unless the actor is a child, the standard of conduct to which he must conform to avoid being negligent is that of a reasonable man under like circumstances.

Bradshaw v. Rawlings, 464 F.Supp. 175, 181 (E.D.Pa.1979). In its post-trial opinion, the district court attempted to justify this instruction by stating:

I submitted this case to the jury on the above concept. The College was permitted to argue to the jury that it was not negligent because it was powerless to control the habits of college sophomores in regard to drinking beer. The jury rejected the College's defense that it acted in a reasonable manner under the circumstances. It should be noted that the College's liability is predicated on the concept of want of due care which a reasonable man would exercise under the circumstances.

Id.

A.

The college's argument strikes at the heart of tort law because a negligence claim must fail if based on circumstances for which the law imposes no duty of care on the defendant. "Negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do." ⁴ As Professor Prosser has emphasized, the statement that there is or is not a duty begs the essential question, which is whether the plaintiff's interests are entitled to legal protection against the defendant's conduct. " '(D)uty' is not sacrosanct in itself, but only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that a particular plaintiff is entitled to protection." ⁵ Thus, we may perceive duty simply as an obligation to which the law will give recognition in order to require one person to conform to a particular standard of conduct with respect to another person.

These abstract descriptions of duty cannot be helpful, however, unless they are directly related to the competing individual, public, and social interests implicated in any case. An interest is a social fact, factor, or phenomenon existing independently of the law which is reflected by a claim, demand, or desire that people seek to satisfy and that has been recognized as socially valid by authoritative decision makers in society. ⁶ Certainly, the plaintiff in this case possessed an important interest in remaining free from bodily injury, and thus the law protects his right to recover compensation from those who negligently cause him injury. The college, on the other hand, has an interest in the nature of its relationship with its adult students, as well as an interest in avoiding responsibilities that it is incapable of performing.

B.

Our beginning point is a recognition that the modern American college is not an insurer of the safety of its students. Whatever may have been its responsibility in an earlier era, the authoritarian role of today's college administrations has been notably diluted in recent decades. Trustees, administrators, and faculties have been required to yield to the expanding rights and privileges of their students. By constitutional amendment, ⁷ written ⁸ and unwritten law, and through the evolution of new customs, rights formerly possessed by college administrations have been transferred to students. College students today are no longer minors; they are now regarded as adults in almost every phase of community life. For example except for purposes of purchasing alcoholic beverages, eighteen year old persons are considered adults by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They may vote, ⁹ marry, ¹⁰ make a will, ¹¹ qualify as a personal representative, ¹² serve as a guardian of the estate of a minor, ¹³ wager at racetracks, ¹⁴ register as a public accountant, ¹⁵ practice veterinary medicine, ¹⁶ qualify as a practical nurse, ¹⁷ drive trucks, ambulances and other official fire vehicles, ¹⁸ perform general fire-fighting duties, ¹⁹ and qualify as a private detective. ²⁰ Pennsylvania has set eighteen as the age at which criminal acts are no longer treated as those of a juvenile, ²¹ and eighteen year old students may waive their testimonial privilege protecting confidential statements to school personnel. ²² Moreover, a person may join the Pennsylvania militia at an even younger age than eighteen ²³ and may hunt without adult supervision at age sixteen. ²⁴ As a result of these and other similar developments in our society, eighteen year old students are now identified with an expansive bundle of individual and social interests and possess discrete rights not held by college students from decades past. There was a time when college administrators and faculties assumed a role In loco parentis. Students were committed...