## Facts

- Jonathan “Ray” Marcus, age 18, drove 14-year-old Samantha Staubs and 15-year-old Kelly Mazur to a gathering near another minor’s home; 26-year-old Steven Woodward rode with Marcus.
- Marcus drove the minors across the West Virginia/Virginia line to a convenience store where Woodward bought alcohol.
- The group went to a West Virginia house where minors drank; Marcus left shortly after drinking began.
- After the gathering ended, Samantha called Marcus for a ride home; he declined.
- Samantha and 14-year-old Misty Johnson stole a neighbor’s truck; Misty, intoxicated, drove Samantha and Samantha’s 13-year-old sister Jessica.
- The vehicle struck an embankment, killing Samantha and seriously injuring Jessica.
- Samantha’s mother, Lori Ann Staubs, sued Marcus and others for negligence based on facilitating underage drinking and failing to act with reasonable care after allegedly creating a risk.
- The circuit court granted summary judgment to Staubs on liability, finding Marcus at least 1% negligent and Jessica less than 50% negligent as a matter of law.
- Marcus appealed, disputing duty, proximate cause, the effect of intervening criminal acts, and the propriety of summary judgment given disputed evidence.

## Issues

1. Whether an adult’s alleged affirmative conduct facilitating minors’ access to alcohol can create a duty to exercise reasonable care to prevent threatened harm.
2. Whether alleged statutory violations relating to underage alcohol can constitute actionable negligence absent a showing of proximate causation.
3. Whether theft of the truck and intoxicated driving were intervening or superseding causes that broke proximate causation as a matter of law.
4. Whether summary judgment on liability was proper where testimony conflicted about the defendant’s conduct, knowledge, and the causal chain.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reviewed the summary judgment ruling de novo.
- The court reversed the grant of summary judgment on liability and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that disputed issues of material fact permeated the record, making summary judgment improper.
- The court emphasized that the circuit court impermissibly resolved contested evidence rather than limiting itself to identifying whether genuine issues required trial.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is proper only when there is no genuine issue of material fact and further factual inquiry is unnecessary to apply the law; a court may not weigh evidence or decide credibility at that stage.
- Violation of a statute is prima facie evidence of negligence, but it is actionable only if the violation proximately caused the injury.
- A person who engages in affirmative conduct and then realizes or should realize the conduct created an unreasonable risk of harm has a duty to exercise reasonable care to prevent the threatened harm.
- Whether a defendant owes a duty to a plaintiff is a question of law for the court, but applying duty and proximate-cause concepts often depends on disputed facts.
- Proximate cause and the effect of intervening criminal acts commonly turn on foreseeability and may require fact-finding when the record is contested.

## Conclusion

The court reversed summary judgment on liability because conflicting evidence about Marcus’s alleged role in facilitating underage drinking, his knowledge and actions, and the foreseeability and causal effect of subsequent criminal conduct required a trial-level fact determination before liability could be fixed as a matter of law.


Marcus v. Staubs, 230 W. Va. 127, 736 S.E.2d 360 (W. Va. 2012)