## Facts

- A bank hired a repossession/collection agency and its personnel to repossess a 1973 Lincoln Continental.
- Prior repossession attempts had been thwarted by the vehicle’s alarm, and one attempt involved a violent confrontation known to the repossessor involved in the later attempt.
- Around 4:00 a.m., the repossessor unscrewed a spotlight illuminating the parking area and intentionally triggered the car alarm to draw the occupants outside.
- Neighbors were awakened and police responded; after police and neighbors left, the repossessor returned, again set off the alarm, and attempted to take the car amid verbal and physical resistance.
- A neighbor, believing a theft was in progress, arrived with a shotgun; during a handoff of the shotgun to another person, it accidentally discharged and severely injured Norman Griffith, a bystander.
- The Griffiths sued the repossession agency, its principals, and the employee repossessor for negligence, alleging the repossession was conducted in a careless and reckless manner that precipitated the shooting.

## Issues

1. Whether the manner of self-help repossession created a foreseeable risk of violent confrontation such that the accidental shooting of an innocent bystander could be found proximately caused by defendants’ conduct.
2. Whether the third party’s involvement with a firearm and the accidental discharge constituted a superseding cause as a matter of law, eliminating defendants’ liability at summary judgment.
3. Whether the repossession tactics could be found to constitute a breach of the peace under the U.C.C. self-help repossession privilege, supporting liability theories including negligence per se.

## Decision

- The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for all defendants and remanded.
- Viewing the evidence favorably to plaintiffs, the court held a reasonable jury could find defendants’ repossession tactics foreseeably created a risk of violent resistance and resulting injury.
- The court held the accidental discharge of the shotgun could be found within the scope of the risk created by defendants’ conduct and was not a superseding cause as a matter of law.
- Foreseeability and proximate cause presented jury questions on this record.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant may be liable when negligent conduct creates or increases a foreseeable risk of a type of harm and that harm occurs through another person’s intervening act, if the intervening act is itself a foreseeable consequence of the original conduct.
- An intervening act, including violent or wrongful conduct by third parties, is not a superseding cause when it is among the hazards that made the defendant’s conduct negligent.
- Self-help repossession is privileged only if accomplished without breach of the peace; repossession conduct that predictably invites confrontation or violence may be treated as a breach of the peace and may support civil liability.
- Summary judgment is improper when reasonable jurors could differ on negligence, foreseeability, and proximate cause.

## Conclusion

The court held that a repossessor’s deliberate nighttime tactics—disabling lighting and repeatedly triggering an alarm despite knowledge of prior conflict—could be found to foreseeably provoke armed confrontation, making proximate cause and superseding-cause determinations questions for the jury rather than grounds for summary judgment.


Griffith v. Valley of the Sun Recovery & Adjustment Bureau, Inc., 126 Ariz. 227, 613 P.2d 1283 (Ct. App. 1980)