Johnson v. Jacobs
2011 WL 5005312, 2011 Ind. App. LEXIS 1827, 970 N.E.2d 666 (2011)
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Rule of Law:
A willful, malicious criminal act by a third party constitutes a superseding intervening cause that breaks the causal chain between a defendant's alleged negligence and the resulting harm, unless the criminal act was a natural, probable, and foreseeable consequence of the defendant's conduct.
Facts:
- Eric Johnson and Beth Johnson were engaged in a contentious divorce, during which Eric had threatened Beth at gunpoint, resulting in a restraining order.
- Eric began taking flight lessons in July 2006 and was a student pilot.
- While on vacation with their eight-year-old daughter, Emily, Eric became upset upon learning Beth was with her new boyfriend.
- On March 5, 2007, instead of taking Emily to school, Eric rented a Cessna airplane from Grissom Airport, despite his instructor's rule that students must have three supervised solo flights before flying unsupervised.
- An airport employee provided Eric the keys, recognizing him as a student pilot and seeing nothing unusual about his behavior.
- During the flight, Eric called Beth, yelled and cursed at her, and told her she would "see her and [her boyfriend] in hell."
- Witnesses observed the plane increase its throttle and descend at a steep 45-degree angle without deploying its landing flaps, contrary to normal landing procedures.
- Eric crashed the plane into the home of Beth's mother, Vivian Pace, one of approximately 18,500 residences in the county, killing both himself and Emily.
Procedural Posture:
- Beth Johnson, the mother, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Lawrence County Board of Aviation Commissioners and the Lawrence County Commissioners (appellees) in an Indiana trial court.
- The appellees filed motions for summary judgment, arguing that Eric Johnson's intentional act was a superseding intervening cause that broke the chain of causation from their alleged negligence.
- The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of all defendants.
- Beth Johnson (appellant) appealed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the Court of Appeals of Indiana.
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Issue:
Does a pilot's intentional act of committing a murder-suicide by crashing an airplane constitute a superseding intervening cause that absolves an airport of liability for its alleged negligence in providing security and enforcing flight rules?
Opinions:
Majority - Baker, J.
Yes. A pilot's intentional act of committing a murder-suicide is a superseding intervening cause that breaks the chain of causation from an airport's alleged negligence. The designated evidence overwhelmingly points to the conclusion that Eric Johnson's actions were an intentional murder-suicide, not an accident. Under Indiana law, a willful, malicious criminal act by a third party is an intervening act that breaks the causal chain. For the airport's alleged negligence to be the proximate cause, Eric's criminal act must have been a natural, probable, and foreseeable consequence of that negligence. Unlike cases where a defendant had specific knowledge of a third party's dangerous propensities, there was nothing in the record to suggest the appellees should have foreseen that Eric, a known student pilot, would use the aircraft to commit murder-suicide. Therefore, his intentional criminal actions triggered the superseding cause doctrine, breaking any causal link to the appellees' conduct as a matter of law.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the doctrine of superseding intervening cause in Indiana tort law, setting a high bar for plaintiffs to establish foreseeability in cases involving third-party criminal acts. It clarifies that for a defendant's negligence to remain the proximate cause, the subsequent criminal act must be more than a remote possibility; it must be a probable and foreseeable consequence. The ruling distinguishes general security lapses from situations where a defendant has specific knowledge of a particular threat, thereby limiting the scope of liability for entities like airports in the face of unforeseeable, intentional violence.
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