## Facts

- Juan Villafane legally owned a handgun.
- Juan kept the handgun loaded in a dresser drawer in his bedroom; the drawer was not locked, and the gun was kept near a tray holding loose change.
- Juan lived with his teenage daughter, Jessica Villafane, and permitted her to take coins from the change tray.
- Jessica invited Carl Johnson to the Villafane home on multiple occasions when her parents were away.
- When Johnson left, Jessica sometimes went into her parents’ bedroom to get coins from the change tray for Johnson to use as bus fare.
- On one occasion, Jessica allowed Johnson to go into her parents’ bedroom alone to get change from the tray.
- While alone in the bedroom, Johnson stole Juan’s handgun.
- Johnson and Jamaal Coltherst later used the stolen handgun to kidnap, rob, and kill Kyle Holden.
- Jack Holden, as administrator of Kyle Holden’s estate, sued Johnson and Coltherst for wrongful death and also sued Juan and Jessica Villafane for negligence, alleging they carelessly allowed the gun to be taken and then used in the killing.
- Juan and Jessica Villafane moved for summary judgment, arguing there was no evidence they could reasonably anticipate that Johnson would steal the handgun and then use it to commit murder.

## Issues

1. Whether, on these facts, Juan and Jessica Villafane owed a duty to protect the public (including Kyle Holden) by securing the handgun against theft by Johnson.
2. Whether Johnson’s theft of the handgun and the later kidnapping and murder were intervening, superseding criminal acts that defeated proximate cause as a matter of law, entitling the Villafanes to summary judgment.

## Decision

- The court granted the motion for summary judgment filed by Juan and Jessica Villafane.
- The court held that, given the circumstances presented, the commission of a murder with a stolen handgun extinguished any potential civil liability of the person from whom the gun was stolen.
- The court concluded that the later violent crimes were legally too remote from any alleged carelessness in storing or allowing access to the handgun.
- The court treated the intentional criminal conduct—stealing the gun and then using it to kidnap and kill—as an intervening, superseding cause that cut off negligence liability.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence liability requires proof of duty, breach, causation, and damages; proximate cause limits liability to harms that are within the scope of risks created by the defendant’s conduct.
- Even if a defendant’s conduct is a factual cause of harm, an independent, intentional criminal act by a third party may be a superseding cause that breaks the chain of proximate causation.
- Foreseeability for negligence purposes is not satisfied merely by pointing to a general possibility that a firearm, if improperly stored, could be taken and misused; the court evaluates whether the later harm is fairly attributable to the defendant’s conduct under the circumstances.
- Summary judgment is appropriate when, viewing the evidence most favorably to the nonmoving party, no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

In Holden v. Johnson, the Connecticut Superior Court granted summary judgment to the handgun owner, Juan Villafane, and his daughter, Jessica, concluding that Johnson’s theft of the gun and the subsequent kidnapping and murder of Kyle Holden were intervening, superseding criminal acts that defeated proximate cause and barred negligence liability for the Villafanes.


Holden v. Johnson, 2005 WL 1153739 (2005)