Opinion
No. CV-03-0824930
November 24, 2004
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION
The defendants in this case have moved for summary judgment on all counts pursuant to an August 27, 2004, motion and memorandum in support. Plaintiffs oppose the motion. Oral argument was held on November 22. Jury selection is scheduled for December 7. For the following reasons, the motion is granted.
In his complaint, William Ludemann alleges that on April 16, 2001, at approximately 9:29 p.m., he was seriously injured in the course of duties as a policeman directing traffic in Enfield when he was struck by a motor vehicle driven by Mary Barrett. A lawsuit brought against Mary Barrett has previously been resolved. In this case, plaintiffs sue the Town of East Hartford and the East Hartford Public Library as well as Effie DiBenedetto, Bea Piersa, and Patrick Jones, who were, respectively, Acting Supervisor, Assistant Director and Director of the East Hartford Public Library at all relevant times. Plaintiff's wife, Laura Ludemann alleges in various counts of the complaint a loss of consortium claim, which is derivative of her husband's claim.
To summarize and simplify, plaintiffs allege that the individual defendants are all professional colleagues of Mary Barrett, who was an employee of the Town of East Hartford Public Library on April 16, 2001. Plaintiffs further allege that on the night in question, Mary Barrett exhibited signs of not feeling well, including sweating about her scalp and a change in the coloration of her face. In spite of the fact that Mary Barrett was a diabetic, that defendants observed her condition and had concerns about the ability to get home, they allowed her to drive home in light of her representations that she was fine. After she left the East Hartford Public Library on the night in question, according to the complaint, she suffered hypoglycemia, became disoriented and mentally incapacitated, and struck and injured William Ludemann.
In their August 27, 2004, Motion for Summary Judgment, defendants argue that they owed no legal duty to plaintiffs and thus breached no duty. Plaintiffs disagree, asserting at oral argument that the defendants owed a duty to the plaintiff because they breached a library procedure or policy. The source of this alleged duty, counsel for plaintiffs indicated repeatedly at oral argument, was the claimed breach of the library's policy or procedure. Pointing to the September 30, 2003 deposition of Library Director Patrick Jones, plaintiffs note that Jones testified that the library has had a policy or procedure that if an employee shows symptoms of illness on the job, "we call 911 and leave it to the professionals." Jones testified that this practice was communicated to the employees. He also testified this procedure was mentioned in a staff manual usually distributed to employees. See Deposition of Patrick Jones, Exhibit C to Plaintiff's October 7, 2004 Objection to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment, at pages 18-20. Plaintiffs' principal claim is that defendants should have prevented Mary Barrett from leaving, or called 911 because they knew, or should have recognized in light of previous problems, and given her appearance, that her alleged condition caused her to pose a threat to William Ludemann and others similarly situated. Plaintiffs also claim that there were inadequacies in the training and supervision of library staff.
Defendants also argue that summary judgment should be granted because their alleged actions were not the proximate cause of plaintiffs' injuries. Issues of proximate cause are usually related to evaluation of the facts; for that reason this argument of defendants is rejected. Defendants argue further that they are immune from suit. In light of my conclusion that the defendants owed no duty to the plaintiffs under the circumstances of this case, I have not reached this issue.
Following oral argument, the Court ordered the plaintiffs to provide a copy of the library policy which they allege to have created a duty to members of the public such as plaintiff. Plaintiff has provided a copy of the East Hartford Public Library Policy Manual, which is devoted almost entirely to routine, internal administrative matters. The Court finds nothing in that manual which supports plaintiffs' claims, although at page 14 there is a statement that "staff member discovering emergency situation should immediately dial 911." Therefore, the Court relies on the full record, including the written submissions of counsel, in evaluating the source of the duty which plaintiffs claim to exist. See in particular Deposition of Patrick Jones, Exhibit C of plaintiffs' October 7, 2004, objection.
"A motion for summary judgment is designed to eliminate the delay and expense of litigating an issue when there is no real issue to be tried." Wilson v. New Haven, 213 Conn. 277, 279, 567 A.2d 829 (1989). Practice Book Sections 17-44 et seq. Summary judgment shall be granted "if the pleadings, affidavits and any other proof submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Practice Book Section 17-49. In light of the important interests and rights involved, the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Connell v. Colwell, 214 Conn. 242, 246-47 (1990). Consequently, in deciding this motion, the Court views the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiffs. This includes plaintiffs' characterization of the facts as found on pages 12-14 of plaintiffs' October 7, 2004 objection to the pending motion.
The essential elements of a negligence case are duty, breach of duty, proximate cause and injury. RK Constructors, Inc. v. Fusco Corp., 231 Conn. 381, 384, 650 A.2d 153 (1994). The existence of a duty of care is a question of law to be resolved by the court. Mendillo v. Board of Education, 246 Conn. 456, 483, 717 A.2d 1177 (1998). "Duty is a `legal conclusion about relationships between individuals made after the fact, and imperative to a negligence cause of action. The nature of the duty, and the specific persons to whom it is owed, are determined by the circumstances surrounding the conduct of the individual.'" (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) RK Constructors, Inc. v. Fusco Corp., supra, 231 Conn. 385-86. See also Shore v. Stonington, 187 Conn. 147, 151, 444 A.2d 1379 (1982). There can be no liability if there is no duty.
Our Supreme Court has set out a two-pronged test to be used in analyzing the existence of a claimed duty. Mendillo v. Board of Education, supra, 246 Conn. 483-84. This inquiry requires "(1) a determination of whether an ordinary person in the defendant's position, knowing what the defendant knew or should have known, would anticipate that harm of the general nature of that suffered was likely to result, and (2) a determination, on the basis of public policy analysis, of whether the defendant's responsibility for its negligent conduct should extend to the particular consequences or particular plaintiff in the case . . . The first part invokes the question of foreseeability, and the second part invokes the question of policy." Id. In Murillo v. Seymour Ambulance Assn., Inc., 264 Conn. 474, 480, 823 A.2d 1202 (2003), our Supreme Court set out four factors to review in determining whether public policy suggests the imposition of a duty: "(1) the normal expectations of the participants in the activity under review; (2) the public policy of encouraging participation in the activity, while weighing the safety of the participants; (3) the avoidance of increased litigation; and (4) the decisions of other jurisdictions."
The Court agrees with the defendants' argument that as a matter of law, public policy considerations militate against finding the existence of a duty given the circumstances of this case, and that to recognize a duty owed by defendants to plaintiffs would extend liability well beyond what society is prepared to sanction. "A simple conclusion that the harm to the plaintiff was foreseeable, however, cannot by itself mandate a determination that legal duty exists. Many harms are quite literally foreseeable, yet for pragmatic reasons, no recovery is allowed . . . A further inquiry must be made, for we recognize that duty is not sacrosanct in itself, but is only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy to lead the law to say that the plaintiff is entitled to protection . . . While it may seem that there should be a remedy for every wrong, this is an ideal limited perforce by the realities of this world." Jaworski v. Kiernan, 241 Conn. 399, 406, 696 A.2d 332 (1997), quoting Maloney v. Conroy, 208 Conn. 392, 400-01, 545 A.2d 1059 (1988).
The Court also agrees with defendants that the case of Weigold v. Patel, 81 Conn.App. 347, 840 A.2d 19 (2004), supports their argument as to the nonexistence of a duty in this case. In Weigold, the Appellate Court held that a psychiatrist and a psychologist did not owe a duty of care to an injured motorist to warn their patient of the danger of operating a motor vehicle while taking prescribed medication. In that case, the psychologist had followed the patient in her car and observed that the patient did not stay in the traffic lane. Stated the Court:
The plaintiff's first claim is that the court improperly concluded that the defendants did not owe his decedent a duty of care to warn the patient not to operate a motor vehicle on the highway. See footnote 4. The plaintiff's claim, to put it another way, is that if the defendants had warned the patient not to operate her motor vehicle, the accident would not have happened. The psychiatrist has argued on appeal that the objective of the plaintiff's claim is that the defendants should have controlled the patient's behavior. We agree. Because the defendants were not in the position to control the patient's behavior, we conclude, pursuant to our plenary review, that the defendants' failure to warn the patient not to operate her motor vehicle was not the proximate cause of the decedent's death. The proximate cause of the decedent's death was the patient's operating her motor vehicle on the highway even though she knew that her ability to do so was impaired. The defendants, therefore, owed no duty of care to the decedent.
Id., at 353-54.
Turning to public policy considerations, the Court concludes that society is not prepared, as a matter of law, to impose on the defendant's liability for harm to the plaintiffs under the circumstance of this case. The library policy or procedure, in the court's view, is designed to protect members of the library; it is not designed to extend to members of the general public or create liability vis-a-vis the general public. Nor persuasively can it be claimed that by acting as they did, the individual defendants somehow assumed a duty to the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs' argument that alleged violations of the library policy or procedure created a duty to William Ludemann is rejected as attenuated.
Relative to the Murillo factors, the Court concludes: (1) that most employees who may be subject to internal policies or procedures like those at issue here do not expect that a violation of the policy will subject them to liability to persons outside the zone of the persons who the policy is designed to protect; (2) that imposing liability in the circumstances of this case would create a strong disincentive for employers to promulgate such beneficial policies; and for employees operating under such policies from assisting other employees, because they would become fearful that if they took reasonable steps to assist others — but did not aggressively pursue such steps — they could become subjected to liability; and this in turn, in the long run, would increase the likelihood that other accidents which might have been prevented would occur; and (3) that creating liability under circumstances like these would contribute to increased litigiousness. With respect to the fourth Murillo factor, the decisions of other jurisdictions, the parties have not brought to the Court's attention any cases that are substantially on point.
It is also important to ask whether imposition of a duty on defendants like these, under the present circumstances, is desirable and practical given the realities of the workplace. See, e.g., Jaworski v. Kiernan, supra. The defendants were not health care providers or medical experts. Their deposition testimony reveals that they were simply lay people concerned about a fellow employee.
The Court is mindful of the serious nature of the injuries claimed. However, the Court concludes that, even accepting the allegations of the complaint as true and viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to plaintiffs, plaintiffs cannot prevail because, as a matter of law, defendants owed no duty to the plaintiffs given the facts of this case.
Douglas S. Lavine
Judge, Superior Court