L.S. Ayres & Co. v. Hicks

Indiana Supreme Court
40 N.E.2d 334 (1942)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

An invitor has an affirmative legal duty to exercise reasonable care to aid or assist an invitee who becomes helpless and is in a position of peril on the premises, even if the invitor was not negligent in causing the initial injury. Liability in such cases is limited to damages for the aggravation of the injury that results from the breach of this duty.

Facts:

John Hicks, a six-year-old boy, was a customer in the appellant's department store with his mother.
While descending on an escalator provided by the store, Hicks fell at the second-floor landing.
Upon falling, the fingers of both his hands were caught in the moving mechanism of the escalator where it disappears into the floor.
The escalator was a modern design for its time, and no safer model was available when it was installed.
The escalator continued to run for approximately 70 steps after Hicks's fingers were caught.
It took between three to five minutes for the escalator to be stopped and for Hicks's fingers to be released.
The continued movement of the escalator after the initial fall and entrapment increased the severity of Hicks's injuries.

Procedural Posture:

John Hicks, the appellee, sued the appellant department store in a trial court to recover for personal injuries.
The jury rendered a general verdict in favor of Hicks.
The appellant filed a motion for a judgment on the interrogatories and a motion for a new trial.
The trial court overruled both of the appellant's motions and entered judgment for Hicks.
The appellant appealed the trial court's judgment to the state's highest court.

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Issue:

Does a business owner, who is not negligent for an invitee's initial injury, have an affirmative legal duty to exercise reasonable care to prevent the aggravation of that injury when it occurs on an instrumentality under the business's control?

Opinions:

Majority - Shake, C. J.

Yes. An invitor has a legal duty to take positive steps to rescue a helpless person in peril on its premises when the injury results from an instrumentality under its control, even if the invitor is not at fault for the original injury. The court found that while the appellant was not negligent with respect to the construction or operation of the escalator, a legal duty arose after Hicks became helpless and trapped. This duty is based on the special relationship between an invitor (the store) and an invitee (Hicks). The court reasoned that while there is generally no duty to rescue a stranger, relationships like master-servant or invitor-invitee impose an obligation to render assistance to prevent further harm. Failure to exercise reasonable care to avoid aggravation of the injury is a breach of this duty. However, the court reversed and ordered a new trial because the trial court's jury instruction on damages was erroneous; it failed to limit the appellant's liability to only the aggravation of the injuries caused by the delay in stopping the escalator, rather than the entire injury.

Dissenting - Roll, J.

The dissent does not fundamentally disagree with the new rule of law but argues against reversing the judgment. The dissent contends that the majority reversed the case based on an error in a jury instruction that the appellant failed to properly object to or raise in its appeal brief. The dissent argues that appellate courts should not search for errors that the parties themselves did not raise, as it is unfair to the appellee who had no chance to respond to the unraised point. Furthermore, the dissenting judge believed that other instructions given to the jury made it clear that they should only award damages for the increase in injury caused by the delay, and therefore, the jury was not confused and the instruction in question was not erroneous in context.

Analysis:

This decision establishes a significant exception to the common law 'no duty to rescue' rule. It creates an affirmative duty for property owners to assist invitees who are injured on their premises, even without initial fault on the part of the owner. The case bifurcates the injury into two parts: the initial harm and any subsequent aggravation. This allows a plaintiff to recover for the aggravated portion of an injury by proving a breach of the duty to assist, even if they cannot prove the defendant was negligent in causing the accident itself, profoundly impacting premises liability law.

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