Hughes v. Maritz, Wolff & Co.
| Decision Date | 12 May 2020 |
| Docket Number | ED 108077 |
| Citation | 601 S.W.3d 306 |
| Parties | Daniel T. HUGHES, Appellant, v. MARITZ, WOLFF & CO., LLC, and Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company Company of Delaware, LLC, Respondents. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
N. Scott Rosenblum, Rosenblum, Schwartz, Rogers & Glass, 120 South Central Ave., Suite 130 Clayton, MO 63105, for appellant.
John G. Schultz, James C. Meyers, Franke Schultz & Mullen, P.C., 8900 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, MO 64114, for respondents.
Daniel Hughes ("Plaintiff") appeals the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Maritz, Wolff & Co., LLC, and Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC a/k/a Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company of Delaware, LLC (collectively "Defendants"). We affirm.
Plaintiff was employed by Enterprise Leasing Company ("Enterprise") as a regional executive. In March 2011, he attended an Enterprise group sales meeting in Clayton, Missouri and stayed as a guest at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel ("Ritz"), assigned to room 811. Plaintiff went to a business dinner with other executives and returned to the Ritz in the early morning hours of March 6, 2011. He requested a replacement key to his room, but mistakenly identified it as room 1611. Plaintiff had to forcibly break the privacy chain engaged inside the room to enter. He noticed there were individuals sleeping in the room but did not question their presence. Instead, he proceeded to undress, climb into bed with a sleeping nine-year-old female child ("Victim") and initiate inappropriate physical contact with her. He was ultimately confronted by her parents, who were sleeping in the other bed. After they kicked him out of the room, he went to the lobby where he was stopped by a security guard. Plaintiff was eventually arrested and charged with four counts of lewd and lascivious behavior with a minor.1 Enterprise terminated Plaintiff following the incident. Plaintiff subsequently filed a petition for negligence against Defendants, claiming they breached their duty to him as a guest by failing to protect him, resulting in his termination and damages.
Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment and statement of uncontroverted facts. Plaintiff failed to timely respond to each paragraph of Defendants’ stated facts as required by Rule 74.04(c)(2). Plaintiff filed a motion to enlarge the time to respond attaching a proposed response. However, the proposed response failed to controvert any of Defendants’ enumerated uncontroverted facts nor did it enumerate a single additional material fact.2 The trial court did not rule on the motion but noted the proposed response was considered in granting summary judgment in favor of Defendants.
Plaintiff presents four points on appeal, each of which asserts the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Defendants. In his first point, Plaintiff claims the court erred because Defendants had a duty to protect him as a guest in the hotel. In point two, Plaintiff claims summary judgment was improper because Defendants breached their duty by giving him the wrong room key, which caused his entry to room 1611. In his third point, Plaintiff argues the trial court erroneously granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants because there is a factual question regarding proximate cause and it cannot be resolved as a matter of law. In his fourth and final point, Plaintiff contends the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Defendants because his forcible entry into room 1611 was not a superseding or intervening cause to break the chain of causation, but instead a foreseeable consequence of Defendants’ negligence.
Our review of the trial court's grant of summary judgment is de novo. ITT Comm. Fin. Corp. v. Mid-Amer. Marine Supply Corp. , 854 S.W.2d 371, 376 (Mo. banc 1993). We will affirm the judgment of the trial court if there are no genuine issues of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. at 377 ; Rule 74.04(c)(6).
When a defendant moves for summary judgment, a right to judgment as a matter of law can be established by showing: (1) facts that negate any one of the elements of Plaintiff's claim; (2) that Plaintiff, after an adequate period of time for discovery, has not and will not be able to produce sufficient evidence to find the existence of any element of Plaintiff's claim; or (3) there is no genuine dispute as to the existence of each of the facts required to prove a properly pleaded affirmative defense. Garrett v. Impac Hotels 1, LLC , 87 S.W.3d 870, 872 (Mo. App. E.D. 2002) ; (quoting ITT Comm. Fin. Corp. , 854 S.W.2d at 381 ).
We need not address each of Plaintiff's points individually because the summary judgment record is clear that Defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff's negligence claim against them based upon the undisputed facts. To show negligence, Plaintiff was required to prove Defendants had a duty to protect him from injury, Defendants failed to exercise their duty, and that failure resulted in damage to Plaintiff. Miller v. South County Center, Inc. , 857 S.W.2d 507, 510 (Mo. App. E.D. 1993). While businesses generally do not owe a duty to protect invitees, there are two exceptions: the "special relationship" test, and the "special circumstances" test.3 Id. A "special relationship" exists if an individual entrusts himself to the protection of another and relies upon that party to provide a safe place. Id. This includes the innkeeper-guest relationship. Id.
However, such duty must be premised upon foreseeable harm that can occur to the guest. See id. at 512. The Plaintiff did not dispute Defendants facts showing they could not have known or should have reason to know Plaintiff would conduct himself in the manner he did once given the key to the wrong room. More specifically, the undisputed facts are that Plaintiff was voluntarily intoxicated, and requested the key to room 1611, which was not his room. Once given the key to room 1611, he found the door locked from inside with a chain which could not be unlocked by the key card. Despite this secondary lock, Plaintiff forcibly entered the room, breaking the chain's screws off the door frame. Upon entry, Plaintiff saw people sleeping in the beds, but did not speak to anyone, much less inquire why they were in his room. He undressed to his underwear, climbed into bed with a person he presumed was a female but did not know the identity of and initiated physical contact with her. He admitted to the police he "was rubbing her butt and I could feel her skin," as he touched her breasts, legs, shoulder, and hands. He also tried to kiss Victim and pull her on top of his body. As a result of his actions, Plaintiff was criminally charged and subsequently terminated from Enterprise.
Nothing in the summary judgment record shows Defendants should have or could have anticipated such behavior by Plaintiff upon being given the key to the wrong room.4 Thus, the undisputed facts show no duty existed. See Miller , 857 S.W.2d at 513 (). As a result, Plaintiff failed to establish a necessary element of his negligence claim, and summary judgment in favor of Defendants was proper.
In addition, we find the undisputed facts in the summary judgment record also defeat the element of causation. To prove the required causation for his claim of negligence, Plaintiff must show both causation in fact and proximate cause. Heffernan v. Reinhold , 73 S.W.3d 659, 664 (Mo. App. W.D. 2002). Defendants’ actions are the cause in fact of Plaintiff's damages if the injury would not have occurred "but for" that conduct. Id. Proximate cause is not causation in fact, but instead is a limitation imposed by law upon a party's right to recover for the consequences of a negligent act. Id. "The requirement of...
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...to judgment as a matter of law if the undisputed facts show that any one of the elements is not met. Hughes v. Maritz, Wolff & Co., LLC , 601 S.W.3d 306, 310 (Mo. App. E.D. 2020). The element of duty in a negligence claim is a question of law for the circuit court to determine before a plai......
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