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Estate of Strever v. Cline6/27/1996
zens already do foresee the potential for criminal acts taking place in their daily lives, and they proceed accordingly. Few members of the public are willing to leave their cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition in a public parking lot for fear that the car will be stolen. Many women when traveling or living alone take precautions to avoid being assaulted. Every person who boards a commercial aircraft is subject to a personal and baggage search because we live in a society where, unfortunately, terrorist attacks are all too foreseeable. It, thus, does not take a crystal ball or a Rhodes Scholar to figure out that if one leaves a firearm and ammunition in an unlocked vehicle on a public street with a veritable candy-store of other goodies in plain view, that some felon just might enter the vehicle unlawfully and make off with the goods and the weapon.
More importantly, however, in our decision on Issue 2, we have not thrown the baby out with the bath water as the special concurrence suggests. We have simply held that:
If, under the facts of a given case, an intervening criminal act is one which the defendant might reasonably foresee, then there is no reason why the fact finder should not decide causation the same as with any other intervening causation case.
While, one can conjure up all sorts of Rube Goldberg scenarios involving intervening criminal acts, realistically, as our decision here and as VanLuchene, Kiger, Camp (which we have not overruled) and King (which we have clarified) reflect, in many instances intervening criminal acts are unforeseeable and will cut off liability. Notwithstanding, those same cases and our decision in Mills also stand for the proposition that if an intervening criminal act is reasonably foreseeable, then liability will not be cut off.
Finally, our opinion on Issue 1 is neither gratuitous nor advisory. As our decision clearly reflects, the District Court granted summary judgment on the basis that Susanj owed no legal duty to Robert Strever. We have concluded that ruling to be erroneous as a matter of law. Without reversing the District Court's decision in that regard we would not have reached Issue 2.
Affirmed.
JUSTICES HUNT, TRIEWEILER, GRAY and LEAPHART concur.
CHIEF JUSTICE TURNAGE concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the result of the majority opinion holding that property owner Tom E. Susanj will not be forced to defend himself in a district court jury trial where he was accused of a tortious act of negligence because thieves entered his property, stole his firearm, and Robert J. Strever, one of the thieves who participated in the theft of Susanj's firearm, was fatally injured.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion holding that, as a matter of law, a property owner owes a legal duty to a thief or a burglar who enters property on a mission of thievery, steals the owner's property, and then injures himself or another with the stolen loot.
Based upon the following facts, the District Court concluded that Tom E. Susanj did not owe a legal duty to Robert J. Strever:
In the early morning hours of May 3 Steven Cline, age 14, Bowen Racine, age 15, and the decedent Robert J. Strever, burglarized vehicles in the area of Eldorado and Fairvale, near the Par 3 Golf Course, including the Defendant Susanj's vehicle. Later Thomas Morris, age 16, saw the three and joined them in returning to the Defendant Susanj's vehicle. Morris took the bag containing the handgun from under the driver's seat of Susanj's vehicle. A dispute exists whether Steven Cline grabbed the gun from Morris
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