Facts
- John Hicks, a six-year-old child, accompanied his mother as a business invitee in a department store operated by L.S. Ayres & Co.
- While descending on the store’s escalator, Hicks fell at a landing near where the steps enter the floor.
- Fingers on both of Hicks’s hands became caught in the escalator’s moving parts at the point where the steps disappear into the floor.
- The escalator continued to run for roughly 70 steps before it was stopped, which the jury found worsened Hicks’s injuries.
- Hicks sued alleging multiple negligent acts, including defective design/guarding and failure to stop the escalator promptly and free him.
- The jury found the store was not negligent in selecting or constructing the escalator, but was negligent in failing to stop it promptly after Hicks was in peril, thereby aggravating his injuries.
Issues
- Whether a department store that controls an escalator owes an affirmative duty to use reasonable care to aid an invitee in peril and prevent aggravation of harm, even if the store did not cause the initial injury.
- Whether the jury instructions improperly permitted damages for the entire injury rather than limiting damages to aggravation proximately caused by the delay in stopping the escalator.
Decision
- The Supreme Court of Indiana held the store owed Hicks a duty to exercise reasonable care to stop the escalator and assist him once his peril was or should have been known, based on the invitee relationship and the store’s control of the instrumentality.
- The court held the store could be liable only for the aggravation of injuries caused by an unreasonable delay in stopping the escalator, not for the original fall or initial entrapment.
- The court reversed the judgment because the damages instructions allowed the jury to award damages for all injuries without clearly limiting recovery to those proximately resulting from the negligent delay.
- The case was remanded with directions to grant the defendant’s motion for a new trial.
Legal Principles
- Although there is generally no duty to rescue strangers, an affirmative duty to take reasonable steps to aid may arise from special relationships, including invitor–invitee, particularly where the defendant controls the instrumentality involved.
- A defendant who did not cause the initial injury may still have a duty, after the injury occurs, to use reasonable care to prevent further harm when the plaintiff is helpless or in imminent peril and the defendant has the ability to act.
- When liability rests on failure to act after the plaintiff is already injured, damages must be limited to harm proximately caused by that actionable negligence (aggravation), not the entire injury sequence.
- Jury instructions on damages must require the factfinder to separate the original injury from any incremental injury attributable to the defendant’s negligent delay or omission.
Conclusion
The court recognized an affirmative duty arising from the store–invitee relationship and the store’s control of the escalator to act reasonably to prevent further harm once the child’s peril was or should have been apparent, but ordered a new trial because the jury was not properly instructed to limit damages to the aggravation caused by the delayed stoppage.