On November 29, 2023, the Indiana Court of Appeals published its Opinion in Brummett v. Bailey, 23A-CT-683, slip op. Brummett is the latest case in a string of Indiana Court of Appeals decisions following the Indiana Supreme Court’s Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar & Grill, Inc., 62 N.E.3d 384, 389 (Ind. 2016). In these cases, the courts have been grappling with the question of whether a landowner or businessowner owes a duty of care to its invitees (what the law calls customers) for the criminal acts of other parties. The key determining factor in these cases has consistently been whether the owner knew or had reason to know of the imminent harm.
On the evening of January 4, 2020, at a bar in Muncie, Indiana, Plaintiff Bailey was pushed off his bar stool following an altercation with another patron. Bailey filed a lawsuit against the bar, its owner, and employees, claiming they were negligent because of their employees’ acts and failures to act to prevent the harm. The bar defendants moved for summary judgment claiming that it and its employees did not owe a duty to Bailey to protect him from an unforeseeable act. The trial court denied the bar defendants’ motion and the defendants appealed.
In its decision, the Brummett court pointed to analysis from Singh v. Singh, 155 N.E. 3d 1197 (Ind. Ct. App. 2020), which discussed the recent Indiana Supreme Court holding from Cavanaugh’s Sports Bar & Eatery, Lt. v. Porterfield, 140 N.E.3d 843 (Ind. 2020). As these cases discuss, an owner must “take reasonable precautions to protect invitees from foreseeable criminal attacks.” Rogers v. Martin, 63 N.E.3d 316, 326 (Ind. 2016). In determining whether an owner has a duty for the criminal act at issue, the Court focuses on the foreseeability of the attack which requires “an evaluation of (1) the broad type of plaintiff and (2) the broad type of harm.” Id. at 325. “In other words, a court looks at foreseeability globally for the purpose of determining whether the category of negligent conduct at issue is sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm suffered such that a duty—and thus liability—may be imposed on the negligent party.” Godfread v. Martin’s Super Markets L.L.C., 120 N.E.3d 234, 240 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019)