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Indiana Supreme Court justices granted transfer to three cases for the week ending July 14, including a case involving two restaurants accused of overserving a man who later killed another driver in a vehicle crash.
In that case — WEOC, Inc. d/b/a Wings, Etc., et al. v. Christopher Adair, et al, 23S-CT-184 — the Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed a lower court’s decision to deny a motion to dismiss a claim that Wings Etc. and El Cantarito’s negligently furnished alcohol to the man.
The restaurants sought to dismiss Count III of a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the estate of the person killed in the crash.
The case centered around the estate’s complaint that in March 2021, Eric Adair went to Wings Etc., where he was served alcoholic beverages.
After drinking there, Adair went to El Cantarito’s, where he was served more alcoholic beverages. Adair was visibly intoxicated at both locations.
In affirming the denial of the restaurants’ joint motion to dismiss, the Court of Appeals ruled Count III did not state any set of circumstances that would entitle the estate to relief.
Justices also granted transfer to Illinois Casualty Company v. Jessica Burciaga, et al., 23S-PL-180, which involves a group of models who sued Insured Clubs, which owns two strip clubs in Fort Wayne, for using their photographs in advertisements without their permission.
The models sued in the Indiana Northern District Court in 2020, but Illinois Casualty Company, which provided the insurance policies for Insured Clubs, denied coverage and refused to defend the strip clubs.
Insured Clubs and the models were then able to reach a settlement agreement in which the club owners agreed to a consent judgment for $1.92 million. Insured Clubs agreed to pay $177,825 and then assigned their rights against Illinois Casualty Company and other insurance companies to the models for the remainder of the judgment.
However, before the consent judgment was approved by the district court, Illinois Casualty filed a declaratory judgment action against Insured Clubs and the models in Allen Superior Court.
The trial court granted a motion from the models to compel arbitration, finding all the models were entitled to present their dispute to the arbitrator even though the arbitration provision applied to only some of the policies.
But the Court of Appeals reversed.
All three appellate judges agreed models with claims before 2016 weren’t entitled to arbitration because the cyber protection endorsement was not included on the insurance policies before that time.
The panel split on the ruling concerning the models with claims from 2016 and later.
Finally, justices granted transfer to Jennifer Pennington, et al. v. Spear Corporation, et al, 23S-CT-182.
In that case, Jennifer and Joshua Pennington filed a complaint alleging Jennifer sustained personal injuries in a swimming pool designed and constructed by Spear Corporation and Panzica Building Corporation, which was owned and operated by Beacon Health and Fitness.
The trial court granted summary judgment to Spear and Panzica and partial summary judgment to Beacon.
The Court of Appeals upheld that decision, finding the trial court did not abuse its discretion by striking a portion of the deposition testimony of the Penningtons’ designated expert witness nor did it abuse its discretion in its evidentiary rulings.
Oral arguments haven’t been scheduled for any of the three cases granted transfer.
Justices denied transfer to 31 cases, including one in which a woman was caught with a small bag of methamphetamine at a county jail after she was arrested.
The woman, Rachel Baker, argued the charge should be dismissed because she wasn’t voluntarily at the jail, so her conduct was neither knowing nor intentional.
The trial court denied her motion to dismiss — as well as a motion to suppress evidence of the meth seized at the jail — and the Court of Appeals upheld those decisions.
Indiana Chief Justice Loretta Rush voted to grant transfer to the case Rachel W. Baker v. State of Indiana, 22A-CR-998.
All justices concurred in the other transfer denials.
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