Summary
The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Simone Greenway in a negligence action arising from Jeffrey Evans’s shooting of his wife, Carrie Randall-Evans, and others. The court held that Greenway’s status as a homeowner did not create a duty to control third parties in her home and that her suggestive dancing and teasing did not make the shooting a foreseeable result of her conduct. The court also declined to impose a broader duty based on Restatement (Second) of Torts § 302B or Alaska public policy.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Greenway's ownership of the home and status as a landowner created a special relationship or duty to control Jeffrey's conduct and protect Carrie from Jeffrey's criminal violence.
- Whether Greenway had a duty under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 302B, or under Alaska common law, not to provoke Jeffrey by dancing and teasing him when violence was allegedly foreseeable.
- Whether summary judgment was proper because Greenway owed no legally cognizable duty and Jeffrey's shooting spree was not a foreseeable result of the conduct alleged.
Holdings
- Greenway's ownership of the property did not create a special relationship imposing a duty to control Jeffrey or protect Carrie from Jeffrey's criminal conduct. Alaska's general landowner duty to maintain property in a reasonably safe condition does not ordinarily include controlling guests' conduct in the home, and Greenway's dance was not related to a dangerous condition on the property.
- The court declined to decide whether Restatement (Second) of Torts § 302B applies in Alaska, but held that even if it applied, Greenway's conduct would not support liability because her teasing dance did not constitute the substantial affirmative act or other circumstance necessary to create a duty for a third party's criminal violence.
- The court declined to impose a new common-law duty requiring a person to refrain from teasing or bullying someone known to be potentially violent where the alleged result is third-party criminal violence.
- Summary judgment for Greenway was proper because, on the undisputed facts, she owed no duty to protect Carrie or control Jeffrey and Jeffrey's shooting spree was not a foreseeable result of Greenway's conduct.
Key quotations
“Generally, a person has no duty to protect others from harm by a third party.” (at 485)
“there can be no duty where the harm is unforeseeable, but foreseeability alone is insufficient to establish a duty if the burden of taking care or the effect on society is too harsh.” (at 491)
“We reject the idea that victims are responsible for the violence they endure in the home, and we will not blame them for their otherwise reasonable actions simply because those actions foreseeably result in violence.” (at 493)
Factual background
Carrie Randall-Evans was afraid of her husband, Jeffrey Evans, who had verbally threatened to beat her and whom she believed might kill her. On the night of the shooting, Carrie and Jeffrey went to Greenway's home, where Greenway and Carrie drank, sparred, danced, kissed, touched, and teased Jeffrey after he made a veiled statement about someone entering the room. Jeffrey left, returned with a pistol, shot Greenway and another person, killed Carrie, and then killed himself. Greenway had never seen Jeffrey become violent or threaten to shoot Carrie and did not know he had a gun.
Procedural history
David Hurn sued Jeffrey Evans's estate and Simone Greenway on behalf of Carrie Randall-Evans's minor children, alleging that Greenway negligently made sexual advances toward Carrie while Jeffrey was present and thereby proximately caused Carrie's shooting death. Jeffrey Evans's estate settled and confessed to an $800,000 judgment. The superior court granted Greenway's motion for summary judgment, and Hurn appealed.