## Facts

- Yukon Equipment, Inc. operated an explosives storage magazine on federally controlled land near Anchorage leased to E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.
- The site was on a large tract reserved for explosives-storage uses by federal administrative orders.
- The magazine was located thousands of feet from the nearest non-explosives building and public highway and contained about 80,000 pounds of explosives.
- Early on December 7, 1973, thieves broke into the magazine, set a charge, and detonated the explosives, apparently to conceal earlier thefts.
- The blast damaged homes and other buildings within (and in some instances beyond) a two-mile radius; the concussion registered on seismic equipment.
- Property owners and insurers sued Yukon and DuPont, asserting negligence, nuisance, strict (absolute) liability, and trespass.
- The trial court granted plaintiffs partial summary judgment on liability without specifying the theory; Yukon and DuPont sought interlocutory review.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs were entitled to summary judgment imposing strict (absolute) liability by treating the storage activity as “abnormally dangerous.”
2. Whether the thieves’ intentional detonation was a superseding cause relieving defendants of liability as a matter of law.
3. Whether negligence, nuisance, or trespass theories could support summary judgment on liability on the existing record.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court reversed the partial summary judgment on liability and remanded.
- The court held that none of the asserted theories justified imposing liability as a matter of law on summary judgment.
- Whether the storage constituted an abnormally dangerous activity required a fact-specific application of the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 520 factors.
- Whether the criminal detonation was a superseding cause turned on foreseeability and related factual questions, including evidence of prior thefts.
- Negligence, nuisance, and trespass theories also depended on disputed factual assessments concerning reasonableness, breach, causation, and context.

## Legal Principles

- Determining whether an activity is “abnormally dangerous” for strict-liability purposes requires applying multiple context-dependent factors (including risk, severity of harm, ability to reduce risk by care, common usage, appropriateness of place, and community value).
- Intentional criminal acts may be a superseding cause only if they are outside the foreseeable risks associated with the defendant’s conduct; foreseeability is commonly a fact question.
- Summary judgment is improper where liability theories depend on disputed facts concerning reasonableness, foreseeability, and proximate cause, and where the record does not resolve those disputes.

## Conclusion

The court held that, although strict liability, negligence, nuisance, and trespass remained potentially viable theories, the record presented genuine issues of material fact—particularly about whether explosives storage at that location was abnormally dangerous and whether the thieves’ actions were foreseeable—so liability could not be imposed by partial summary judgment.


Yukon Equip., Inc. v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co., 585 P.2d 1206 (Alaska 1978)