Whether a court may use the unforeseeability of a particular accident to deny or limit a property owner’s duty of ordinary care.
Holding
No. Foreseeability does not determine whether a duty exists or should be limited. Because the Court of Appeals’ purported policy analysis largely turned on foreseeability and the reasonableness of the defendants’ conduct, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
Reasoning
Owners and occupiers generally owe visitors a duty of ordinary care, including care against harmful conduct by third parties. A court may deny or limit that duty for a class of cases only by identifying a specific countervailing policy unrelated to foreseeability.
Foreseeability depends on the facts: a risk that seems unlikely under one set of circumstances may be apparent under another. It therefore belongs in the assessment of breach and legal cause, ordinarily made by a jury, rather than in a categorical judicial ruling that no duty exists.
The Court of Appeals relied on the apparent rarity of vehicles entering buildings and on features of this shopping center to deny a duty. Those considerations addressed how likely the crash was and whether the defendants should have taken precautions—not whether property owners owe ordinary care in this class of cases.
The absence of a law requiring protective barriers did not supply a policy reason to eliminate the duty. Building codes set minimum standards; compliance may be evidence of reasonable care, but it does not conclusively establish it. The plaintiffs’ expert evidence and photographs of precautions at other businesses likewise concerned the reasonableness of the defendants’ conduct, not the existence of a duty.
Ordinary care does not make a property owner an insurer against every accident. On remand, a court may still enter judgment on breach or legal cause if no reasonable jury could find for the plaintiffs. Neither lower court had applied that standard, so the Supreme Court left those questions for further proceedings.