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Wednesday, March 31, 2004

Indiana Decisions - Two Supreme Court rulings posted today

Louis Simon, et al. v. United States (3/31/04 IndSCt) [Conflict of Laws]
Shepard, Chief Justice

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has certified two questions regarding Indiana’s choice-of-law rules. We hold that there is a true conflict between the choice of law rules of Indiana and the District of Columbia because Indiana does not engage in dépeçage and has not adopted the policy analysis component of the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws approach. In so saying, we restate the Indiana choice of law analysis outlined in Hubbard Manufacturing Co. v. Greeson, 515 N.E.2d 1071 (Ind. 1987). * * *

Dépeçage is the process of analyzing different issues within the same case separately under the laws of different states. Although Indiana allows different claims to be analyzed separately, it does not allow issues within those counts to be analyzed separately. For example, an Indiana court might analyze a contract claim and a tort claim independently but would not separately analyze and apply the law of different jurisdictions to issues within each claim. Dépeçage has not been part of Indiana’s lexicon. [In a footnote the Court adds: "In fact, we could find only one case decided in Indiana that even mentions the word, and it was decided by a federal district court applying Arizona conflict of law rules under the Federal Tort Claims Act. See Estate of Sullivan v. United States, 777 F. Supp. 695, 698 (N.D. Ind. 1991)."] * * *

In conclusion, a true conflict exists between the choice-of-law rules of Indiana and the District of Columbia, and assuming that Indiana choice-of-law rules apply, Indiana would apply Indiana substantive law.

Amy M. Rhodes, et al. v. Mark D. Wright, et al. (3/31/04 IndSCt) [Torts]
Sullivan, Justice

This is the Tyson Chicken case. The 7/22/03 Indiana Law Blog entry on the Court of Appeals ruling in this case, captioned "Agriculture: Duty to business invitees," has been the most-read entry ever posted here.

The Court of Appeals panel last July affirmed the trial court grant of summary judgment for Defendants in a negligence action for the death of a worker on its premises. The Court of Appeals, as stated by the Supreme Court in today's opinion, held "that Defendants did not control the area where the accident occurred and that the danger was obvious. Finding genuine issues of material fact in this regard, we reverse."

The facts, as stated here by the Court:

On February 13, 2001, some time after 3:00 a.m., Dwaine D. Gurtz, a truckdriver for Tyson Foods, Inc., was struck and killed by a forklift while at Wright Brothers Farm. Defendants own the farm and raise chickens under a contract for Tyson. The accident occurred while Tyson employees were at the farm collecting some chickens. Gurtz parked his truck near one of the chicken houses and began unbooming chains from the trailer of the truck. Another Tyson employee who was in a chicken house picking up cages of chickens backed a forklift out of the chicken house. The forklift struck Gurtz from behind, pinning him between the back of the forklift and the trailer. He died approximately one hour later.

At the time of the accident, it was dark and foggy. The lights in the chicken houses were off and the outside of the chicken houses did not have any lighting to illuminate the loading area. Neither the backup lights nor the backup alarm on the forklift were working.

The Estate of Dwaine D. Gurtz sued Wright Brothers Farm for negligence in failing to light the loading area properly and failing to warn Gurtz of known dangers on the property. The trial court granted summary judgment for Wright Brothers Farm and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Rhodes v. Wright, 790 N.E.2d 577, 578 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003). We granted transfer pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A) and now reverse.

In its analysis, the Court notes:
In negligence cases, summary judgment is “rarely appropriate.” Tibbs v. Huber, Hunt & Nichols, Inc., 668 N.E.2d 248, 249 (Ind. 1996); accord Guy’s Concrete, Inc. v. Crawford, 793 N.E.2d 288, 293 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003), trans. denied, Modern Heating & Cooling, Inc. v. Crawford, 2003 Ind. LEXIS 1086 (Ind. Dec. 18, 2003). This is because negligence cases are particularly fact sensitive and are governed by a standard of the objective reasonable person – one best applied by a jury after hearing all of the evidence.
The conclusion:
These four grounds raised by Defendants in support of summary judgment cannot be resolved in such a hasty manner. The facts do not provide a clear answer as a matter of law, and a reasonable jury could find for either party on any of these issues. Summary judgment is therefore inappropriate.

Conclusion. Having previously granted transfer, we now reverse the judgment of the trial court. This case is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 31, 2004 02:55 PM
Posted to Indiana Decisions