McCarty v. Pheasant Run

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · Torts

TortsNegligencePremises liabilityInnkeeper liabilityCriminal acts by third partiesEvidenceCivil procedureRule 50(b)

Facts

Mrs. McCarty was a guest at Pheasant Run Lodge when an intruder entered her second-floor room through a sliding glass door opening onto a publicly accessible walkway. Police found that the door had been closed but unlocked, had been pried open from the outside, and that the safety chain had been broken. McCarty alleged the hotel was negligent in failing to protect her from the attack by using better locks, warnings, security, access restrictions, and key-control procedures. The intruder apparently hid in the room until she returned and then attacked her.

Issue

Whether the plaintiff was entitled to judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial on her negligence claim against the hotel, and whether the district court erred in instructing on contributory negligence and excluding certain evidence. More specifically, the court considered whether the evidence required a finding of negligence as a matter of law and whether the excluded evidence was relevant and properly barred.

Rule

Under Rule 50(b), a party may not obtain judgment notwithstanding the verdict on an issue unless that party first moved for a directed verdict on that same issue. Negligence under Illinois law is failure to use reasonable care, which the court treats as equivalent in substance to asking whether the burden of precaution is less than the magnitude of the accident multiplied by its probability. Even where an Illinois innkeeper owes guests a high standard of care against assaults on the premises, that duty does not impose strict liability; liability depends on proof of cost-justified precautions whose omission caused the plaintiff's injury. Evidence of alternative precautions or other crimes is properly excluded when not sufficiently relevant to the mechanism of the injury or when its probative value is substantially outweighed under Rule 403.

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At trial in federal court in Chicago, Lena Ortiz sued Harbor Crest Suites after she was injured by a criminal intruder at the hotel. Before the case went to the jury, Lena moved for a directed verdict only on the hotel's comparative-negligence defense, while the hotel moved for a directed verdict on its own lack of negligence; both motions were denied, and the jury returned a verdict for the hotel.

Lena then files a Rule 50(b) motion seeking judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the ground that the hotel was negligent as a matter of law. How should the court rule?

Explanation. Rule 50(b) requires that the party seeking judgment notwithstanding the verdict must previously have moved for a directed verdict on that same issue. A motion on the plaintiff's comparative negligence is not equivalent to a motion that the defendant was negligent as a matter of law, and the defendant's own motion does not preserve the issue for the plaintiff. (Derived from McCarty v. Pheasant Run (n.d.).)