Court Finds No Duty Owed By Landowner Where Person Hit By Wayward Target Shooting Shot Coming From the Land

In the case of Folcomer v. Craft, No. 2018-SU-0025278 (C.P. York. Co. Jan. 8, 2025 Menges, J.), the court granted a Motion for Summary Judgment filed by certain Defendants in a tragic shooting accident matter.

According to the Opinion, one of the Defendants in this case lived on the moving Defendant’s property. On the day of the incident, certain Co-Defendants were target shooting on the property.

Nearby, the Plaintiff and the Plaintiff’s decedent left their home and began a drive.

A bullet from the shooting target area of the nearby home traveled through the target, into the nearby woods, ricochet off a roadway and struck the decedent who was a passenger in the Plaintiff’s vehicle.

The Defendants who filed the summary judgment motion in this case were the owners of the property on which the target shooting was taking place.

In this decision, the court ruled that no duty exists to control the acts of third parties unless a “special relationship exists with either the actor the victim."

In this decision, the court also addressed the Nanty-Glo rule and found that this rule did not bar summary judgment in this case as the testimony relied upon by the moving the Defendant was from adversarial Co-Defendants.

The court also referred to §318 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts and found that the moving Defendant landowners had no duty to control the conduct of the shooting Defendants as there was no evidence that the moving Defendants were aware of any continuous or dangerous use of the land that would have allowed them an opportunity to intervene. In this case, it appeared that the act of target shooting on the property was not an ordinary event.

In the end, the court granted the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by the moving Defendants who were the owners of the land in question.

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.


I send thanks to Attorney Stephen M. Hickey of the York, PA law firm of Griffith, Lerman, Lutz & Scheib for bringing this case to my attention.

College Held Not Responsible for Acts of Inebriated Fraternity Member Under Facts Alleged

In the case of Rose v. Vilmatelo, No. 2018-SU-450 (C.P. Adams Co. April 12, 2019 George, J.), the court addressed Preliminary Objections filed by Gettysburg College seeking the dismissal of a Plaintiff’s personal injury claim arising out of allegations that the Plaintiff, a college student, was injured by an allegedly inebriated participant at a fraternity function on campus.  

The Plaintiff alleged that the college was responsible for the acts of its students and that the college breached its duty to supervise the actions of the fraternity.

The court dismissed the Plaintiff’s Complaint against the college based upon the case of Alumni Ass’n v. Sullivan, 572 A.2d 1209 (Pa. 1990) in which it was held that college students were no longer minors, but rather adults who were capable of protecting their own self interests.  As such, under that case, a college was found not to have any duties in loco parentis with respect to its students.  

The trial court in this matter rejected the Plaintiff’s efforts to get around the Sullivan case by way of the Plaintiff’s arguments that (1) the college was allegedly aware that alcohol consumption was a problem on campus, (2) that the college had previously enacted rules requiring fraternities to notify the college administration of any events involving alcohol and, (3) in that the college required the fraternities to have someone oversee conduct at such events.   The Plaintiff alleged that, by enacting these rules, the college had assumed a special duty to control the activities at the event.  

The trial court in this Rose case rejected these arguments and noted that prior case law in Pennsylvania had rejected these types of arguments.   The court noted that, by simply adopting social policies for campus activities, the college did not create an in loco parentis type of duty on the part of the college.   The court found that the college’s social policy and rules were not an assumption of a duty, but rather a policy statement that adult students should be aware of their own behavior and act accordingly.  

The court in this Rose case emphasized that the Plaintiff’s Complaint did not contain any allegations that the college itself was a social host.   

The Complaint also did not allege that representatives of the college were present at this fraternity function or that any college representative assisted in any way in procuring or distributing alcohol to the attendees of the event.

Based upon this rationale, the court sustained the Preliminary Objections asserted by the Defendant, Gettysburg College.  

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.

Source: “Digest of Recent Opinions.” Pennsylvania Law Weekly (July 16, 2019). 

Duties of Mental Health Professionals to Protect Others in a School Setting

In the case of Swanger v. Warrior Run School District, No. 4:11-CV-894 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 2, 2018 Mariani, J.), the court addressed the duty of parties to control the conduct of third party to protect others from harm.  The case arose out of alleged inappropriate touching between two mentally challenged students in a school setting.

Judge Mariani stated that, as a general matter of law, persons have no duty to control the conduct of third parties to protect another from harm.  An exception exists for mental health professionals who know, or should know, that a patient poses an immediate threat of serious harm to a specific intended victim.   The court otherwise noted that the law does not impose any generalized duty upon mental health professionals to warn unspecified classes of person with whom patients might interact.  

In this matter, the court found that the Plaintiff did not have a claim against the Defendant mental health providers because the patient at issue made no reference during his treatment to the Plaintiffs as a specifically identified potential victim.  

As such, summary judgment was granted in part and denied in part in this matter. 

Anyone wishing to review of a copy of this decision may click this LINK.  The companion Order can be viewed HERE.

I send thanks to Attorney James M. Beck of the Philadelphia office of the Reed Smith law firm from bringing this case to my attention.