Najam, J.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Alfredo Rodriguez, individually and as permanent guardian of the person and estate of Miriam Rodriguez, appeals the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of United States Steel Corporation (“U.S. Steel”) on Alfredo’s negligence claim. Alfredo presents three issues for our review, but we address only one dispositive issue, namely, whether the trial court erred when it concluded that U.S. Steel did not owe a duty to Miriam.
We affirm.
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Alfredo contends that U.S. Steel owed third-party motorists, and, therefore, Miriam, a duty when it permitted Faught to work long hours for several consecutive days without any policy or training to combat employee fatigue. Consequently, he argues, the trial court erred when it entered summary judgment in favor of U.S. Steel. We disagree.
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Miriam and U.S. Steel had no direct relationship. Thus, Alfredo relies on Gariup Construction Co. v. Foster, 519 N.E.2d 1224 (Ind. 1998), a dram shop case, to establish a relationship between U.S. Steel and Miriam by way of the collision between Faught and Miriam. Gariup held that an employer owed a duty of reasonable care to a third-party motorist, injured by the employer’s intoxicated employee after a holiday party, where the employer had hosted the party on its premises, supplied alcohol, and allowed a drinking game to occur. Id. at 1229. Alfredo analogizes the situation here to Gariup and maintains that U.S. Steel has sufficient control over its employees’ schedules to overwork them, which produced an impaired driver who injured a third-party motorist. In other words, Alfredo reasons that, like the employer in Gariup, U.S. Steel placed a dangerous instrumentality—Faught—in motion, which created a relationship between U.S. Steel and Miriam.
But working hours do not necessarily affect a person in the same way that alcohol does. While significant consumption of alcohol, in itself, inevitably leads to impairment, many factors other than long-working hours may contribute to fatigue—for instance, off-duty activities, quantity and quality of sleep, medical conditions and medication, and the length of the employee’s commute—over which employers have no control. Indeed, Faught testified at his deposition that he slept only four-and-a-half hours before his eleven-hour, January 20-21 shift, which was fairly standard for him. Moreover, although Faught’s hours were largely determined by the amount of work that his team needed to complete, he could take breaks from his work if and when he became tired. This is not the sort of “influence and control as contemplated in Gariup.” Clary, 903 N.E.2d at 1040. We cannot say that U.S. Steel either knew or should have known that Faught was fatigued such that he could endanger third-party motorists. Thus, we decline to extend Gariup here, and we hold that the relationship factor of the Webb test favors U.S. Steel.
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…Therefore, we frame the issue of foreseeability here broadly and construe all facts and inferences in favor of Alfredo, the nonmovant. As a result, we hold that this factor favors Alfredo: a third-party motorist could be a reasonably foreseeable victim of an injury inflicted by an employee suffering from work-induced fatigue.
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The public-policy prong of the Webb test strongly disfavors Alfredo. The focus of this factor is on “who is, or should be, in the best position to prevent an injury and how society should allocate the costs of such injury.” Cox v. Stoughton Trailers, Inc., 837 N.E.2d 1075, 1081 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005).
Here, Faught, not U.S. Steel, was in the best position to prevent the injury to Miriam. He controlled his sleep schedule and the time of day he worked, and he was able to take breaks from his work if and when he became tired. Further, better than anyone else, Faught would know whether he felt fatigued.
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Conclusion
Considering each of the three Webb factors, we hold that U.S. Steel did not owe Miriam a duty of reasonable care. While, in general terms, her injury was reasonably foreseeable, she had no relationship with U.S. Steel, and public policy strongly counsels against the imposition of a duty on employers to monitor worker fatigue. In sum, we do not believe reasonable persons would recognize such a duty and agree that it exists. Absent such a duty, U.S. Steel is entitled to summary judgment, and we affirm the trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of U.S. Steel.
Affirmed.
MATHIAS, J., and BRADFORD, J., concur.