Lutheran Hosp. of Indiana, Inc. v. Blaser
| Decision Date | 15 June 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 02A04-9307-CV-247,02A04-9307-CV-247 |
| Citation | 634 N.E.2d 864 |
| Parties | LUTHERAN HOSPITAL OF INDIANA, INC., Appellant-Defendant, v. Joy Lee BLASER and Glen E. Blaser, Appellees-Plaintiffs. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
JOHN F. LYONS, Barrett & McNagny, Fort Wayne, for appellant.
Roger Wm. Bennett, Brent E. Clary, Bennett, Boehning, Poynter & Clary, Lafayette, for appellees.
Defendant-Appellant Lutheran Hospital of Indiana, Inc. (Lutheran) appeals from a judgment in favor of Plaintiffs-Appellees Joy Lee Blaser and Glen E. Blaser for injuries suffered by Joy Lee Blaser (Blaser) in the driveway of Lutheran's parking facility.
We affirm.
Lutheran presents seven issues for our review which we rephrase as follows:
1. Did the trial court err by finding that Lutheran owed a duty of reasonable care to Blaser?
2. Did the trial court err by refusing Lutheran's Tendered Instruction No. 6 and giving Final Instruction Nos. 11 and 12?
3. Was the jury's damage award excessive?
Lutheran is a health care facility located in Fort Wayne. It is served by a parking facility (parking lot) located east of the hospital across Fairfield Avenue, a two-lane city street, and bounded on the south by Downing Avenue and on the north by Home Avenue.
Early in December 1990, Blaser and her husband, Glen, drove to Lutheran where Glen was to be admitted as a cardiac patient. They entered the parking lot from Fairfield Avenue although this opening is designated an "exit." After they parked their car, Blaser and Glen crossed Fairfield Avenue mid-block in order to reach the hospital entrance.
After Glen was admitted, Blaser returned to her car again crossing Fairfield Avenue mid-block. Each day she visited Glen, Blaser parked in the same parking lot and crossed to and from the hospital at the same place.
On December 6, 1990, Glen had cardiac surgery and Blaser stayed at Lutheran until approximately 10:00 p.m. at which time she left the hospital and walked toward Fairfield Avenue. When she reached the street, she looked to her right and saw a car approaching at some distance. She crossed the street and as she was walking up the driveway of the parking lot, she was struck by a vehicle as it turned into the driveway. The identity of the vehicle's driver is unknown.
Blaser was taken back to Lutheran where she remained for 44 days. Her injuries included multiple fractures to her hip, bruises, abrasions, and disfiguring swelling in her hip area. She injured her knee, and had swelling and bleeding on her face. Because of other medical conditions, medication was necessary to counteract any blood clots that might occur secondary to her bedridden state. Following her release from the hospital, Blaser was unable to care for herself and her husband for six months. She used a walker for five months, and has used a cane thereafter. A 1992 x-ray revealed degenerative changes in her lumbosacral spine and hip, and the presence of a fracture fragment which remained rotated out of shape. Blaser also suffers psychological problems as a result of her injuries and has sought counseling at the request of her physician.
On October 11, 1991, Blaser and her husband filed a complaint against Lutheran alleging eight theories of negligence against the hospital. After a trial, the jury returned a verdict and the judge entered a judgment in favor of Blaser and her husband in the amount of $535,000.00, from which Lutheran now appeals.
Lutheran contends that the trial court erred when it found that Lutheran had a duty to Blaser when she was struck by a car in the parking lot's driveway, a right-of-way over which Lutheran alleges it did not control and only had a duty to maintain. We do not agree.
The conduct of the defendant gives rise to an action in negligence only when the defendant owes a duty to the plaintiff to exercise care, the determination of which is a question of law. Bearman v. University of Notre Dame (1983), Ind.App., 453 N.E.2d 1196, 1198; McAdams v. Dorothy Edwards Realtors (1992), Ind., 604 N.E.2d 607, 611. Absent a duty owed to the plaintiff by the defendant, there can be no actionable negligence. Fawley v. Martin's Supermarket (1993), Ind.App., 618 N.E.2d 10, 12, trans. denied. The relationship of Lutheran and Blaser was that of landowner and business invitee. Thus, Lutheran had a duty to exercise reasonable care for her protection. Burrell v. Meads (1991), Ind., 569 N.E.2d 637, 639, reh'g denied. 2
Lutheran contends that its general duty to exercise reasonable care to its invitees, including Blaser, does not include protecting Blaser from a hit-and-run driver whose conduct "could hardly be deemed foreseeable." Appellant's Brief at 28. Although a business invitor is not the insurer of its invitees' safety, Lutheran had a duty to guard against subjecting Blaser to dangers of which Lutheran was cognizant of or might have reasonably foreseen. Fawley, 618 N.E.2d at 13. The invitor has a duty to exercise reasonable care to discover defects or dangerous conditions on the premises, and he will be charged with knowledge of, and held liable for injuries which result from, any dangerous condition which he could have discovered in the exercise of reasonable care. Verplank v. Commercial Bank of Crown Point (1969), 145 Ind.App. 324, 334, 251 N.E.2d 52, 58. In addition, an invitor's duty to exercise reasonable care includes a duty to provide a safe and suitable means of ingress and egress, and may extend to warning of or protection from a danger that originates from third persons. Bearman, 453 N.E.2d at 1198.
The evidence at bar indicates that Lutheran is on the west side of Fairfield Avenue while its parking lot is on the east side. In the middle of the east side of the hospital and facing the parking lot is a circular driveway, a covered canopy entrance, good lighting, an auxiliary entrance, and a guard booth. No other entrance to the hospital is as conspicuous as this one although Lutheran does not regard this as its main entrance.
Pedestrian invitees parking in the parking lot necessarily cross Fairfield Avenue usually mid-block coming in and out of the hospital by means of the canopy entrance. Pedestrian invitees do not usually use the marked and lighted intersections with crosswalks on the north and south ends of Fairfield Avenue. When one of the crosswalks was constructed, Lutheran assured the city engineer that it would discourage people from using the canopy entrance doors as an entry and exit to the hospital; however, virtually nothing had been done inside the hospital towards this end or to direct pedestrians to the crosswalks.
Outside, visual cues draw pedestrians to cross mid-block at the circular drive in front of the canopy entrance. Concrete pads, in addition to the sidewalk and drive way, accommodate pedestrians and vehicles. Adjacent to the circular drive there is a paved surface like a sidewalk going to the edge of the sidewalk to prevent vehicles and pedestrians from tearing up the yard. On the parking lot side of the street and opposite the hospital entrance, there is another concrete pad which serves the tractor-trailers which turn into the parking lot, but which also serves pedestrians crossing to and from Lutheran. Neither the parking lot attendants nor security guards try to dissuade pedestrians from crossing Fairfield Avenue mid-block.
On the east side of Fairfield Avenue, back from the drive way leading into the parking lot is a guard house which is well illuminated and of a shape associated with the entrance and exit of parking lots. On top of the guard house is a large and well-lit sign with a large arrow pointing into the parking lot and captioned "Purchasing 2905 Warehouse." To approaching vehicles on Fairfield Avenue, this sign, the driveway and guardhouse appear as part of the parking lot's entrance. However, the Fairfield Avenue "entrance" is for delivery trucks only, and is an "exit" for automobiles. An automobile driver cannot tell that this is an "exit" until he is alongside it or starting to turn into the driveway.
Each night three or four automobiles mistakenly turn into the Fairfield Avenue "exit," while others begin to turn in, catch their mistake, and leave on their own. Both the Blasers and Mr. Sobeck, a forensic engineer hired by Blaser, inadvertently turned into the "exit" when first arriving at the parking lot.
From this evidence, the factfinder could infer that automobiles were turning into the "exit" driveway of the parking lot with the mistaken idea that it was an entrance, and pedestrians were crossing mid-block on Fairfield Avenue and walking into the "exit" driveway towards their cars. This funnelling of pedestrian and vehicular traffic into the drive way of the parking lot created a dangerous condition that Lutheran was either cognizant of or should have reasonably foreseen. The accident which occurred, that is, Blaser struck from behind by an automobile turning into the parking lot "exit" while she was walking on its drive way, was precisely the result of the dangerous condition which Lutheran should have foreseen. Thus, this accident was sufficiently foreseeable to require Lutheran to protect its invitees from such an unfortunate mishap.
Lutheran relies on Fawley, 618 N.E.2d 10, which held that an invitor owes no duty to invitees to protect them from runaway vehicles in parking lots, since this kind of occurrence is not sufficiently foreseeable for the invitor to be required to protect against it. Id. at 13. However, that case can be distinguished from the one before us. In Fawley patrons of a supermarket were struck by an automobile driven by a drunk driver. Id. at 11. The automobile was driving through the supermarket's parking lot when the driver lost control; the car jumped a curb, went onto the sidewalk, and struck pedestrians. Id. In explaining why this accident was not sufficiently foreseeable...
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