Rains v. Bend of the River

• Decision Date: 31 July 2003
• Docket Number: No. M2000-00439-COA-R9-CV.,M2000-00439-COA-R9-CV.
• Citation: 124 S.W.3d 580
• Parties: Bobby Wayne RAINS, et al. v. BEND OF THE RIVER, et al.
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

124 S.W.3d 580

Bobby Wayne RAINS, et al. v. BEND OF THE RIVER, et al.

No. M2000-00439-COA-R9-CV.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, at Nashville.

October 11, 2000 Session.

July 31, 2003.

Permission to Appeal Denied by Supreme Court November 24, 2003.

Richard W. Mattson, Nashville, Tennessee, Daniel H. Rader, III, Cookeville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Bend of the River.

John E. Acuff, Cookeville, Tennessee, for the appellees, Bobby Wayne Rains, Sandy Gail Rains, John Rains, and Adriane Rains.

R. Douglas Hanson, Memphis, Tennessee, for the amicus curiae, Tennessee Defense Lawyers Association.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BEN H. CANTRELL, P.J., M.S., and PATRICIA J. COTTRELL, J., joined.

This appeal involves an eighteen year old who committed suicide with his parents' .25 caliber handgun. The parents filed suit in the Circuit Court for Putnam County against the retailer who sold their son ammunition for the handgun shortly before his death. They later amended the complaint to seek loss of consortium damages for themselves and their son's surviving siblings. The trial court denied the retailer's motion for summary judgment regarding the wrongful death claims, as well as the retailer's motion to dismiss the loss of consortium claims. Thereafter, the trial court granted the retailer permission to seek a Tenn. R.App. P. 9 interlocutory appeal from its refusal to dismiss the wrongful death and loss of consortium claims. We granted permission to appeal and have now determined that the trial court erred by denying the retailer's Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56 and 12.02(6) motions because, based on the undisputed facts, the suicide was not reasonably foreseeable and was the independent, intervening cause of the young man's death.

I.

Aaron Rains was one of three children of Bobby Wayne Rains and Sandra Gail Rains. In July 1995, when he was sixteen, Mr. Rains and his parents moved from Mississippi to Cookeville, Tennessee. He made new friends, attended school, and, like many teenage boys, found a series of part-time jobs to earn some spending money. Mr. Rains was an active member of the local Police Explorers post and sang in his church's youth choir. He was also particularly close to his mother's older brother who worked as a deputy sheriff with the Putnam County Sheriff's Department and frequently rode with his uncle on patrol. Mr. Rains had aspirations to continue his education following high school and to pursue a career in either law enforcement or forestry.

Mr. Rains's father had always owned firearms and had taught his son to shoot at a young age. He forbade his son to use the firearms unless he was present to supervise. In addition to several rifles and shotguns, Mr. Rains's father owned a .25 caliber handgun that he had purchased while the family lived in Mississippi. He stored the handgun and the other weapons in a locked gun case in his home, and he kept the key to the gun case in his wife's jewelry box. Mr. Rains and his father had frequently used to the .25 caliber handgun and a .22 caliber rifle for target practice while they lived in Mississippi. They did not have target practice after moving to Cookeville because they lacked a suitable place to shoot.

Mr. Rains turned eighteen in mid-January 1997. At some point on July 16, 1997, Mr. Rains found the key to his father's gun case and removed the .25 caliber handgun. He closed and locked the case and then returned the key to his mother's jewelry box where he had found it. Then, he set out to find ammunition for the pistol because his father did not have any ammunition in the house. His first stop was the sporting goods department at a local K-Mart. He inquired about the minimum age for purchasing .25 caliber ammunition and was told that buyers of that ammunition must be at least twenty-one years old. Mr. Rains showed the clerk his driver's license and commented, "Oh, I'm only eighteen." Rather than purchasing the ammunition, Mr. Rains purchased a package of BBs and left K-Mart.

After leaving K-Mart, Mr. Rains drove to Bend of the River Shooting Supplies, a store in Cookeville selling firearms, shooting supplies, and ammunition. While at Bend of the River, Mr. Rains purchased a box of Winchester .25 ACP automatic caliber 50 gr. full metal jacket cartridges.¹ The store clerk did not ask Mr. Rains for proof of his age and accepted Mr. Rains's personal check in the amount of $11.85 in payment for the ammunition. There is no evidence that Mr. Rains's conduct and demeanor while he was at Bend of the River were out of the ordinary.

Sometime later, either on July 16, 1997 or early July 17, 1997, Mr. Rains drove his car to Walker Hollow Road and parked. He loaded his parents' pistol with the ammunition he had purchased at Bend of the River and fatally shot himself. The box of ammunition bearing Bend of the River's price tag was found in his car. It is undisputed that Mr. Rains used the .25 caliber handgun and ammunition to commit suicide. It is equally undisputed that neither Mr. Rains's parents nor any other family members had any sort of warning that Mr. Rains was planning to take his own life. From all outward signs, he was a happy, well-adjusted young man.

Mr. Rains's mother and sister were away at a church camp on July 16, 1997. His father was not alarmed when Mr. Rains did not return home that evening. Nor was he concerned when he discovered that his .25 caliber handgun was missing from the gun case. However, on the morning of July 17, 1997, Mr. Rains's father called his brother-in-law to report that his son had not come home. Mr. Rains's father and uncle searched his room looking for some clue about his whereabouts and found the K-Mart bag containing the BBs and the sales slip from Bend of the River. They went to both K-Mart and Bend of the River and then drove around looking for Mr. Rains and talking to his friends about where he might be.

Ms. Rains returned home when the news of her son's disappearance reached her. She and her husband distributed fliers around Putnam County, and the members of their church mobilized to help the Putnam County Sheriff's Department look for Mr. Rains. On Sunday morning, July 20, 1997, Ms. Rains's brother received word that Mr. Rains had been found dead in his automobile. He asked his sister and brother-in-law to meet him at the sheriff's office and when they arrived, he informed them of their son's death. Several days later, the funeral director returned Mr. Rains's personal effects, including his wallet, to his family. Mr. Rains's father found a suicide note in the wallet. The note shed no light on the basis for Mr. Rains's decision to take his own life.

On July 15, 1998, Mr. Rains's parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit seeking actual and punitive damages from Bend of the River premised on two theories—negligence per se and negligent entrustment. They asserted that Bend of the River was negligent per se because it had sold handgun ammunition to a person who was less than twenty-one years of age in violation of the Gun Control Act [18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(1) (2000)]. They also asserted that Bend of the River should not have entrusted handgun ammunition to an "18 year old child." Bend of the River filed an answer denying liability and, in July 1999, moved for a summary judgment, asserting (1) that Mr. Rains's suicide was an intervening, superseding cause that relieved it of liability, (2) that more than fifty percent of the fault for Mr. Rains's death must be attributed to others, and (3) that the punitive damage claim must fail because Mr. Rains's parents had produced no evidence of intentional, fraudulent, malicious, or reckless conduct on its part.

The trial court denied the motion and granted Mr. Rains's parents' oral motion to amend their complaint to add a claim for loss of consortium for themselves and Mr. Rains's surviving brother and sister. Bend of the River filed a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(6)² motion to dismiss the loss of consortium claims. The trial court denied the motion but later granted Bend of the River's Tenn. R.App. P. 9 motion to seek an interlocutory appeal from its denial of the summary judgment motion with regard to the wrongful death claims and the motion to dismiss the loss of consortium claims. We granted Bend of the River's application for an interlocutory appeal and now reverse the trial court.

II. THE WRONGFUL DEATH CLAIMS

We turn first to Mr. Rains's parents' wrongful death claims based on negligence per se and negligent entrustment. Even though the sale of the handgun ammunition to Mr. Rains violated 18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(1), we have determined that Bend of the River is entitled to a summary judgment dismissing both claims because Mr. Rains's suicide was an independent, intervening act that Bend of the River could not reasonably have been expected to foresee.

A. The Standard of Review

The standards for reviewing summary judgments on appeal are well-settled. A summary judgment is proper in virtually any civil case that can be resolved on the basis of legal issues alone. Fruge v. Doe, 952 S.W.2d 408, 410 (Tenn.1997); Byrd v. Hall, 847 S.W.2d 208, 210 (Tenn.1993); Church v. Perales, 39 S.W.3d 149, 156 (Tenn.Ct.App.2000). Because a summary judgment involves an issue of law rather than an issue of fact, Planters Gin Co. v. Federal Compress & Warehouse Co., 78 S.W.3d 885, 889 (Tenn.2002), orders granting or denying a summary judgment are not entitled to a presumption of correctness on appeal. Pero's Steak & Spaghetti House v. Lee, 90 S.W.3d 614, 620 (Tenn.2002); Scott v. Ashland Healthcare Ctr., Inc., 49 S.W.3d 281, 285 (Tenn.2001).

Appellate courts do not employ the standard of review in Tenn. R.App. P. 13(d) when reviewing an order granting or denying a summary judgment. Mason v. Seaton, 942 S.W.2d 470, 472 (Tenn.1997); Estate of Kirk v. Lowe, 70 S.W.3d 77, 79-80 (Tenn.Ct.App.2001). Rather, we determine for ourselves whether the moving party has...