 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Estate of Strever v. Cline6/27/1996
or whether Morris merely handed it to him, but in any event Cline obtained possession of the gun and later pulled the trigger and the bullet struck Strever in the head resulting in his death.
The District Court, relying on this Court's precedent in Lencioni v. Long (1961), 139 Mont. 135, 361 P.2d 455; Schafer v. State, Dept. of Institutions (1979), 181 Mont. 102, 592 P.2d 493; and King v. State (1993), 259 Mont. 393, 856 P.2d 954, holding that criminal acts are generally unforeseeable, held that the intervening criminal act of one of the thieves was reasonably unforeseeable and no duty was owed by property owner Susanj to Strever.
Our standard of review of a district court's conclusion of law is to determine whether the court's interpretation of the law is correct. In re Estate of Goick (1996), 275 Mont. 13, 909 P.2d 1165. Under the existing decisions of this Court, the District Judge should be affirmed on his conclusion of law that no legal duty was owed by Susanj to Strever; our standard of review requires affirming.
Our prior decisions, which the majority has overruled on this legal point, had established a rule of law that set the public policy we should follow — a policy based on reason and common sense — that our citizens are not required to foresee the acts of thieves and burglars.
Why, then, does the majority reject our existing public policy and write a new public policy establishing that our citizens now owe a legal duty to thieves and burglars, a breach of such duty subjecting them, at a minimum, to the stress, expense and hazard of a jury trial when a thief or burglar steals from their property or home a firearm, or other object that could produce harm, and injures himself or a fellow thief or burglar? Bad public policy.
In overruling our prior precedent and from the ruling in this case, it does not require a crystal ball or a Rhodes Scholar to foresee that innocent citizens will have their homes burglarized, their vehicles entered, their firearms or other possessions stolen, and that in some cases the thieves and burglars will injure themselves or others with the stolen property. The victimized owners will then be hauled into court to defend themselves against a claim of tortious damages.
In Montana, for reasons of hunting, sport or home protection, many of our citizens own and keep firearms. It will be a real surprise to them to learn that, if they are victimized by a burglar or thief and their firearms are stolen, they may have breached a legal duty and be required to defend themselves in a civil suit for tort damages. Perhaps this decision may be welcomed by those who would ban firearms, as a form of subtle gun control. It is a certainty that the majority of Montanans will not so welcome the majority decision.
I would agree that the owner of a firearm breached a legal duty if he left lying around in his home a loaded firearm, in plain view and accessible to small children lawfully in the home and if one of the children, in handling the firearm, injured himself or another. However, these are not the facts in the case before this Court.
We are here confronted with a roving band of teenage thieves on a mission to break into and steal from several vehicles. The Court's reliance on Limberhand v. Big Ditch Co. (1985), 218 Mont. 132, 706 P.2d 491, to elevate the status of thieves and burglars to that of an invitee, licensee, or civil trespasser is misplaced.
The facts in Limberhand had nothing to do with criminal acts. In Limberhand, a social guest was visiting a tenant in defendant's apartment complex. The tenant's guest was accompanied by her eighteen-month-old child. T
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Montana Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|