Knott v. Liberty Jewelry and Loan, Inc.

• Court: Washington Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: RINGOLD
• Citation: Knott v. Liberty Jewelry and Loan, Inc., 748 P.2d 661, 50 Wn.App. 267 (Wash. App. 1988)
• Decision Date: 08 January 1988
• Docket Number: No. 20404-1-1
• Parties: , 56 USLW 2484, Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 11,711 Norma KNOTT, Guardian ad Litem for Douglas Knott, Appellant, v. LIBERTY JEWELRY AND LOAN, INC., a Washington corporation; Hashi Taniguchi and Taeko Taniguchi, husband and wife, d/b/a the Publix Hotel; and City of Seattle, a municipal corporation; Rohm Gesellschaft, a foreign corporation; and RSR Wholesale Guns, a foreign corporation, Respondents.

Page 267

50 Wn.App. 267

748 P.2d 661, 56 USLW 2484, Prod.Liab.Rep.

(CCH) P 11,711

Norma KNOTT, Guardian ad Litem for Douglas Knott, Appellant, v. LIBERTY JEWELRY AND LOAN, INC., a Washington corporation Hashi Taniguchi and Taeko Taniguchi, husband and wife, d/b/a the Publix Hotel; and City of Seattle, a municipal corporation; Rohm Gesellschaft, a foreign corporation; and RSR Wholesale Guns, a foreign corporation, Respondents.

No. 20404-1-1.

Court of Appeals of Washington Division 1.

Jan. 8, 1988.

Lembhard G. Howell, Seattle, for Norma Knott, Guardian ad Litem for Douglas Knott.

William Hickman, Pamela Okano, Joseph McCarthy, Reed, McClure, Moceri, Thonn & Moriarty, Seattle, for Liberty Jewelry & Loan.

Preston Niemi, Seattle, for Rohm Gesellschaft.

Megan Graves, Merrick, Hofstedt & Lindsey, Seattle, for Taeko Taniguchi.

Joel Wright, Lee, Smart, Cook, Martin & Patterson, Seattle, for RSR Wholesale Guns.

RINGOLD, Acting Chief Judge.

The plaintiff, Norma Knott, guardian ad litem for Douglas Knott, appeals from the trial court's dismissal of all claims on defendants' motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment. We affirm.

On July 3, 1984, Joseph Bates made application to purchase a .22 caliber handgun ("Saturday Night Special" ¹) from Liberty Jewelry and Loan. Liberty completed the application and forwarded it to the Seattle Police Department which, on July 6, found that Bates was not prohibited from purchasing a handgun. On July 13, Bates returned to Liberty, completed required federal forms, and picked up the gun. The handgun was manufactured by Roehm Gesellschaft, assembled by R.G. Industries and distributed by RSR Wholesale Guns.

On July 31, 1984, Bates shot Douglas Knott in a stairwell at the Publix Hotel, where both men resided. Bates then returned to his room and committed suicide. Knott suffered severe injuries and is now a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic. Knott's mother, as guardian ad litem for Douglas Knott, commenced this action.

Knott claims negligence on the part of the hotel's proprietor, and raises product liability and tort claims against the vendor, distributor, assembler and manufacturer of Bates' handgun. The trial court granted defendants' motions for dismissal and for summary judgment. This appeal followed.

CLAIMS AGAINST HOTEL OPERATOR

The plaintiff first assigns error to the trial court's dismissal of the negligence claim against Hashi Taniguchi, the proprietor and manager of the Publix Hotel. Knott alleged in her complaint that Taniguchi knew or should have known of Bates' violent nature, and failed to fulfill his duty to warn Knott of Bates' dangerous propensities or to protect him from injury. The trial court found no facts on the record suggesting that Taniguchi knew or had reason to know Bates posed a danger to other hotel guests. Without this knowledge, the trial court concluded, Taniguchi had no legal duty to warn other guests of the danger presented by Bates or to prevent Bates from carrying his weapon.

Knott's evidence concerning Taniguchi's alleged knowledge of Bates' dangerous propensities consisted of the affidavit of an investigator and deposition testimony from another resident of the Publix Hotel. Each alleged Taniguchi knew on the day of the shooting that Bates was carrying a concealed gun. Knott also offered evidence showing other hotel residents found Bates to be "strange." According to Knott, Bates recently had glared at and intentionally bumped into other hotel guests, had reached into a bag as if to grab a gun, and had verbally threatened other guests. The plaintiff offered no evidence any guest reported these acts to Taniguchi or his employees or that Taniguchi or any of his employees ever witnessed Bates behaving in a belligerent or threatening manner. Taniguchi testified at his deposition that he thought Bates to be a very quiet man.

After considering the evidence, the trial court held that even if Taniguchi knew Bates owned and carried a gun, that knowledge alone could not be found to have imparted knowledge of Bates' dangerous character and propensity for violence:

I don't see any way that Mr. Taniguchi could possibly have foreseen that this would happen, and I just do not see a duty on his part to warn Mr. Knott or the other tenants.

A motion for summary judgment under CR 56(c) should be granted only if the pleadings, affidavits, depositions, and admissions on file demonstrate there is no genuine issue as to any material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The court must consider all of the facts submitted and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. The court should grant the motion only if, from all of the evidence, reasonable persons could reach but one conclusion. In reviewing the trial court's decision, this court engages in the same inquiry as did the trial court. Wilson v. Steinbach, 98 Wash.2d 434, 437, 656 P.2d 1030 (1982); Mark v. Williams, 45 Wash.App. 182, 186, 724 P.2d 428 (1986).

The essential elements of actionable negligence are: (1) the existence of a duty owed to the complaining party; (2) a breach thereof; (3) a resulting injury; and (4) a proximate cause between the claimed breach and resulting injury. E.g., Hansen v. Washington Natural Gas Co., 95 Wash.2d 773, 776, 632 P.2d 504 (1981). Foreseeability determines the extent and scope of duty. Rikstad v. Holmberg, 76 Wash.2d 265, 268, 456 P.2d 355 (1969). The threshold determination of whether a defendant owes a duty to the plaintiff is a question of law. Pedroza v. Bryant, 101 Wash.2d 226, 228, 236, 677 P.2d 166 (1984).

The general rule followed in Washington is that an innkeeper owes to his guests the duty to exercise reasonable care to protect them from injury at the hands of a fellow guest. Miller v. Staton, 58 Wash.2d 879, 883, 365 P.2d 333 (1961). The scope of this duty is limited to the range of danger foreseeable to the innkeeper. See Bernethy v. Walt Failor's, Inc., 97 Wash.2d 929, 653 P.2d 280 (1982).

Reviewing the evidence before the trial court, we find Taniguchi had no knowledge of facts which should have alerted him to Bates' dangerous propensities and that the shooting of Knott was not reasonably foreseeable. Taniguchi was therefore under no legal duty to warn or protect guests of the Publix Hotel. We hold the trial court acted properly in granting Taniguchi's motion for summary judgment.

MANUFACTURERS AND SELLERS OF HANDGUNS

Knott next asks us to adopt a legal theory holding manufacturers, assemblers, distributors and sellers of Saturday Night Specials such as that purchased by Bates liable in tort to one intentionally shot by the purchaser of a handgun. Knott reasons this liability is warranted because these particular guns have no legitimate purpose and impose a staggering cost upon society through their criminal misuse. See, e.g., Turley, Manufacturers' and Suppliers' Liability to Handgun Victims, 10 N. Ky.L.Rev. 41 (1982). Knott seeks imposition of liability under one of the following theories: (1) because Saturday Night Specials are defective, victims of their criminal misuse should be permitted to pursue product liability claims under ch. 7.72 RCW; (2) by failing to surpass statutory marketing guidelines, the distributor and seller negligently distributed the weapon; (3) the mere distribution or sale of Saturday Night Specials is an ultrahazardous activity; and (4) this court should adopt a new common law cause of action permitting compensation of innocent victims of the criminal use of Saturday Night Specials. We hold Knott has stated no cause of action against Roehm, R.G. Industries, RSR Wholesale Industries and Liberty Jewelry and Loan and affirm the dismissals of these defendants.

A. Product Liability

The Product Liability Act, RCW ch. 7.72, governs claims or actions brought for harm caused by the manufacture or marketing of the product in issue. Claims subject to the act include claims or actions previously based on:

Strict liability in tort; negligence; breach of ... warranty; breach of ... a duty to warn or instruct, whether negligent or innocent; misrepresentation, concealment, or nondisclosure, whether negligent or innocent; or other claim or action previously based on any other substantive legal theory except fraud, intentionally caused harm or a claim ... under the consumer protection act....

RCW 7.72.010(4).

Knott theorizes that Saturday Night Specials are by their nature of unreasonably unsafe design. This theory ignores the statutory definition of what constitutes a reasonably unsafe design:

A product is not reasonably safe as designed, if, at the time of manufacture, the likelihood that the product would cause the claimant's harm or similar harms, and the seriousness of those harms, outweighed the burden on the manufacturer to design a product that would have prevented those harms and the adverse effect that an alternative design that was practical and feasible would have on the usefulness of the product.

RCW 7.72.030(1)(a). It is difficult to comprehend how any operable handgun, no matter how different from the one that paralyzed Knott, "would have prevented those harms...." Knott's product liability action does not fit within the provisions of ch. 7.72 RCW and was properly dismissed by the trial court.

B. Negligence

Knott next contends the distributor and seller of Bates' handgun were negligent in the marketing and sale of Saturday Night Specials. She reasons that because the guns allegedly have no legitimate purpose and are often used in criminal activity, RSR and Liberty knew or should have known these guns would be used to harm innocent parties. Knott argues that given this knowledge, RSR Wholesale Guns was under a duty to warn retailers of the "dangerous propensities of the Saturday Night Specials" and to provide retailers with safe marketing guidelines, and that Liberty was under a duty to go beyond statutory minimums in...