Sterner v. Wesley College, Inc., Civ. A. No. 88-508-JRR

• Decision Date: 14 September 1990
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 88-508-JRR,87-603-JRR.
• Citation: 747 F. Supp. 263
• Parties: Carolyn L. STERNER and Michael A. Sterner, Individually and as Administrator of the Estate of Christopher L. Sterner, deceased, Plaintiffs, v. WESLEY COLLEGE, INC., a domestic non-taxable granting institution, Edward H. McGee and Robert E. Rumsey, Defendants. Joseph MORGAN, Plaintiff, v. WESLEY COLLEGE, INC., a domestic non-taxable granting institution, Defendant, v. Robert RUMSEY and Edward H. McGee, Third Party Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Delaware

747 F. Supp. 263

Carolyn L. STERNER and Michael A. Sterner, Individually and as Administrator of the Estate of Christopher L. Sterner, deceased, Plaintiffs, v. WESLEY COLLEGE, INC., a domestic non-taxable granting institution, Edward H. McGee and Robert E. Rumsey, Defendants.

Joseph MORGAN, Plaintiff, v. WESLEY COLLEGE, INC., a domestic non-taxable granting institution, Defendant, v. Robert RUMSEY and Edward H. McGee, Third Party Defendants.

Civ. A. Nos. 88-508-JRR, 87-603-JRR.

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

September 14, 1990.

Richard E. Poole and David L. Baumberger of Potter, Anderson & Corroon, Wilmington, Del., for plaintiffs Carolyn and Michael Sterner.

James S. Green of Connolly, Bove, Lodge & Hutz, Wilmington, Del., for plaintiff Joseph Morgan.

Benjamin C. Wetzel, III of Bailey & Wetzel, P.A., Wilmington, Del., for defendant Wesley College, Inc.

Stephen P. Casarino of Casarino, Christman & Shalk, Wilmington, Del., for defendant Edward H. McGee.

Michael Weiss of Kimmel, Weiss & Carter, P.A., Wilmington, Del., for defendant Robert E. Rumsey.

OPINION

ROTH, District Judge.

These consolidated diversity actions arise from a fire that broke out in a dormitory at Wesley College on April 12, 1987. As a result of that fire Christopher Sterner died and Joseph Morgan was injured. The parents of Christopher Sterner, with his father also acting as administrator of Christopher's estate, filed suit against Wesley College and against Edward McGee and Robert Rumsey, two students who plaintiffs claim were responsible for setting the fire. The Sterners allege both negligent and reckless conduct by the defendants and demand compensatory and punitive damages. Joseph Morgan has filed suit against Wesley College for compensatory damages.

Presently before the Court are the defendants' motions for partial summary judgment on the issues of whether the Sterners can recover punitive damages against the defendants and whether plaintiffs should be permitted to introduce evidence of hedonic damages at trial. Morgan did not participate in these motions. For the reasons stated below, we will grant Wesley College's motion for partial summary judgment on the availability of punitive damages, deny the motions of McGee and Rumsey on that issue, and, except to the extent that hedonic damages are included in the damages recoverable for pain and suffering, grant defendants' motion for exclusion of hedonic damages.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Christopher Sterner, Edward McGee, Robert Rumsey and John Stelter, Jr., were students at Wesley College, located in Dover, Delaware, during the 1986-1987 academic year. They resided in Williams Hall, a Wesley College dormitory; Rumsey, Stelter and Sterner in different rooms on the second floor and McGee on the third floor. The College generally required all students under the age of twenty-one to reside in campus dormitories. At approximately 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, April 12, 1987, a fire broke out in Williams Hall, resulting in Christopher Sterner's death from smoke inhalation and in Joseph Morgan's injuries.

On the evening of Saturday, April 11, McGee, Rumsey and Stelter had been drinking beer at a party in Rumsey's room. Stelter retired to his own room around midnight, after having an argument at the party. Shortly before 2:00 a.m. on April 12, Rumsey and McGee went to Stelter's room and found the door closed and locked. They tried to rouse Stelter by pounding on his door, but Stelter did not respond. Rumsey and McGee assumed that he was asleep in the room.

McGee and Rumsey then went up to McGee's room on the third floor to get two smoke bombs.¹ McGee lit one of the smoke bombs in the open hallway of the third floor, and McGee and Rumsey remained there until the bomb had expelled its contents. McGee and Rumsey then returned to the door of Stelter's room on the second floor. A resident assistant for the second floor observed McGee and Rumsey close to Stelter's door and questioned them briefly concerning their presence in the hallway. McGee and Rumsey said nothing about their plan to set off a smoke bomb. The resident assistant left them in the hallway and returned to his room.

McGee then ignited the second smoke bomb and aimed it directly under the door of Stelter's room by holding it close to the base of the door. Rumsey was with McGee as he did this. After the bomb had expelled all of its contents, Rumsey and McGee returned to Rumsey's room. There had been no response from Stelter. Rumsey testified in deposition that they set off the smoke bomb as a prank to rouse Stelter from his room.

A fire broke out on the second floor of Williams Hall at this time. McGee and Rumsey concede, for the purpose of their present motions only, that the fire started in Stelter's room and was ignited by the smoke bomb that McGee had aimed under the base of Stelter's door.² Stelter kept a rolled-up towel taped to the inside base of his door. McGee and Rumsey were aware of the placement of this towel from prior visits to Stelter's room.

Wesley College maintained an uncomplicated type of fire alarm system in Williams Hall. There were two bells on each floor along with mechanical pull switches to set off the alarm when a fire was detected. The alarm system could not detect the presence of smoke or high temperature. Wesley College tested the alarm system before dormitory residents arrived each semester. The system was also tested once a month either by a fire drill or simply by the fact that a false alarm had been set off.

Patrick McGinley, a fire safety expert retained by defendant Wesley College for this litigation, testified at his deposition that the alarm system used in Williams Hall did not require inspection and maintenance by particularly qualified personnel, unless it was likely that the system was not functioning properly. It is McGinley's opinion that, in the absence of an apparent malfunction, this type of system can be tested properly by the method employed by Wesley College. Plaintiffs do not contest McGinley's accuracy in this regard.

McGinley also testified that in his opinion the Wesley College alarm system was a suitable type of system for a college dormitory. He believes that a more sophisticated smoke-detecting system would provide as many complications as it would benefits in such a setting. Plaintiffs contend that Wesley College should have installed a more sophisticated alarm system in Williams Hall. However, Fred Kirchner, an alarm system technician upon whose deposition plaintiffs rely, testified that the College was not required by applicable safety standards to install smoke detectors.

At the time of the April 12 fire, the alarm system failed to go off when students pulled the manual switches. The Resident Director, resident assistants and other students in the dormitory shouted in the halls and went door to door to rouse the residents of Williams Hall and evacuate them.

When the student in the room next to Christopher Sterner's had fled the fire, Christopher's door was still closed and locked. The firemen, when they arrived, found Christopher lying on the floor at the open door to his room. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Joseph Morgan awoke in his smoke filled room. He couldn't see or find the door. He collapsed on the floor and was able to crawl under his desk and cover himself with a blanket. The firemen found him there unconscious.

The alarm system in Williams Hall had functioned properly on previous occasions when it was tested by the College or set off by false alarms. One such false alarm had occurred late in the evening on Friday, April 10, 1987. Russell Pleasonton, a Wesley College security guard, responded to the false alarm and reset the alarm system. Normally, the alarm bells should ring continuously until turned off. Pleasonton noticed on this occasion that the ringing of the alarm bells faded and stopped before he turned off the alarm system. He reset the system and checked the panel of circuit breakers which were all in the proper position. A warning device in the alarm system, designed to emit a buzz if there was a problem in the system, did not make any sound on that evening. Apparently, at some time in the past, someone had placed a piece of tape in the device to prevent the buzzer from sounding.

Pleasonton also noticed that one of the alarm bells was missing from the first floor of Williams Hall. He informed the Resident Director of the dormitory and the maintenance mechanic on duty of this fact. Daniel Squires, the mechanic, did not have an opportunity to replace the missing bell between late Friday evening and the April 12 fire. During that period he spent time repairing the plumbing connected to a sink that had been torn from the wall of one of the bathrooms in Williams Hall. Squires believed that the missing bell would not affect the functioning of the other alarm bells.

As described above, Rumsey and McGee were drinking beer in Rumsey's room on the evening of April 11. Both students were under twenty-one years of age. Wesley College did not state in its student contracts, or in other materials sent to the students, that consumption of alcohol in dormitory rooms by students under the age of twenty-one was expressly prohibited by the College. The College did not police drinking by underage students in the dormitory rooms but simply relied on the fact that twenty-one was the legal drinking age in the State of Delaware. The College did not allow alcohol at any College functions or in any public places on the campus. The College provided an alcohol education program during two sessions of the student orientation course. These two sessions were devoted to the physical and behavioral effects of alcohol. The College also had instituted a program of counselling for students with alcohol abuse problems. The administration considered its approach to alcohol to be rehabilitative and educational as opposed to punitive.

DISCUSSION

In this...