Rush, C.J.
Angela Martin and Brian Brothers co-hosted a house party. As it wound down, Brothers and two guests—Jerry Chambers and Paul Michalik—got into a fistfight. Afterwards, Martin found Jerry Chambers bleeding from his face and Paul Michalik lying motionless on her basement floor. Michalik died shortly thereafter.
Chambers’s bankruptcy trustee and Michalik’s estate sued Martin, claiming, in part, that she negligently caused Michalik’s injuries and that she furnished alcohol in violation of Indiana’s Dram Shop Act. Martin filed a motion for summary judgment, which the trial court granted.
Applying principles of premises liability law, we first hold that summary judgment was improper on the negligence claim. As a landowner, Martin owed her invitee Michalik a duty to exercise reasonable care for his protection while he was on her premises. This Court has, on several occasions, decided how this general landowner–invitee duty applies in various circumstances— with foreseeability being the determinative question. Bearing that in mind, we conclude that although Martin had no duty to protect Michalik from the unforeseeable fistfight, she did have a duty to protect him from the foreseeable exacerbation of an injury occurring in her home. Whether she breached this duty by going back to bed instead of taking some affirmative action, like dialing 911, is a question of fact. We therefore reverse summary judgment on the negligence claim.
Summary judgment was proper, however, on the Dram Shop Act claim. Under Indiana’s Dram Shop Act, a person does not “furnish” alcohol by providing it to someone who already possesses it. And here, because Martin and Brothers jointly paid for and possessed the same beer, Martin could not furnish it to Brothers. We thus affirm summary judgment on that claim.
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Although we agree that summary judgment on the negligence claim was improper, we reach that conclusion for a different reason. The duty governing Martin’s conduct—the duty to exercise reasonable care for an invitee’s protection while the invitee is on the premises—is already firmly grounded in premises liability law. Over the years, the application of this broadly stated landowner–invitee duty to particular situations has depended on one critical element: foreseeability.
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At this point, we have endeavored to clarify two important legal concepts in the area of premises liability law—that the landowner–invitee “duty to protect” generally applies to dangerous activities on the land and that a court must analyze the foreseeability of harm before extending this duty to a particular situation. But we still must address one additional point before moving on to the specifics of this case—and that is how the foreseeability analysis is actually performed.
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Thus, today, we chart a definitive path: When foreseeability is part of the duty analysis, as in landowner–invitee cases, it is evaluated in a different manner than foreseeability in the context of proximate cause. Specifically, in the duty arena, foreseeability is a general threshold determination that involves an evaluation of (1) the broad type of plaintiff and (2) the broad type of harm. In other words, this foreseeability analysis should focus on the general class of persons of which the plaintiff was a member and whether the harm suffered was of a kind normally to be expected—without addressing the specific facts of the occurrence. Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar and Grill, Inc., No. 27S02-1510-CT-627, ___ N.E.3d ___, slip op. at 8–11 (Ind. Oct. 26, 2016) (evaluating why this is the appropriate framework in determining foreseeability in the duty context). We believe this analysis comports with the idea that “the courts will find a duty where, in general, reasonable persons would recognize it and agree that it exists.” Gariup Constr. Co., Inc. v. Foster, 519 N.E.2d 1224, 1227 (Ind. 1988) (quoting Prosser & Keeton on Torts § 53, at 357–59 (5th ed. 1984)). Bearing that framework in mind, we turn to the case at hand.
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We have repeatedly stated that a landowner has a duty to take reasonable precautions to protect invitees from foreseeable criminal attacks. E.g., Plonski, 930 N.E.2d at 7. And in this case, we assume, without deciding, that Brothers’s conduct in engaging in a fistfight with Chambers and Michalik constituted a criminal act. As stated above, whether this duty applies to Martin’s conduct, as a matter of law, requires us to evaluate the broad type of plaintiff and harm involved, without considering the specific facts of the case. In other words, the inquiry is not whether Martin could have foreseen that Brothers would get into a brawl with Chambers and Michalik. Rather, we look at whether a duty should be imposed on Martin, as a homeowner, to take precautions to prevent a co-host from fighting with and injuring a house-party guest. Although house parties can often set the stage for raucous behavior, we do not believe that hosts of parties routinely physically fight guests whom they have invited. Ultimately, it is not reasonably foreseeable for a homeowner to expect this general harm to befall a house-party guest; rather, to require a homeowner to take precautions to avoid this unpredictable situation would essentially make the homeowner an insurer for all social guests’ safety. Accordingly, Martin had no duty to take reasonable precautions to protect Michalik from Brothers’s conduct.
Martin did, however, have a duty to protect Michalik after she found him lying unconscious on her basement floor. Homeowners should reasonably expect that a house-party guest who is injured on the premises could suffer from an exacerbation of those injuries. Thus, we conclude that Martin owed a duty to her social guest to protect him from the exacerbation of an injury occurring in her home. The undisputed evidence shows that Martin went down to her basement and saw Michalik listless on her floor. Michalik died shortly after. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Martin was negligent—questions of breach and proximate cause remain for the fact-finder. In other words, we do not decide whether Martin’s failure to call the police, dial 911, or take any other affirmative action breached this duty. Nor do we determine whether Michalik’s death was a natural and probable cause of Martin’s conduct. We do believe, however, that reasonable persons would recognize a duty here and agree to its existence. Gariup Constr. Co., 519 N.E.2d at 1227. And because questions of fact remain on the negligence claim, summary judgment was improper.
II. Under Indiana’s Dram Shop Act, a Person Does Not “Furnish” Alcohol by Providing It to Someone Who Already Possesses It.
As a second basis for holding Martin liable, plaintiffs argue Martin “furnished” alcohol to Brothers in violation of Indiana’s Dram Shop Act, codified at Indiana Code section 7.1-5-10-15.5. The Act imposes civil liability for “furnishing” alcohol to visibly intoxicated people who, in turn, cause injury. Outback Steakhouse of Florida, Inc., v. Markley, 856 N.E.2d 65, 74 (Ind. 2006). The parties’ dispute boils down to statutory interpretation—the plain meaning of “furnish.” Martin argues two people who possess the same alcohol cannot “furnish” it to each other, while plaintiffs argue they can.
The Court of Appeals agreed with plaintiffs, finding a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether Martin furnished beer to Brothers by placing a pitcher on the poker table. We, however, agree with Martin, and hold that Martin and Brothers jointly possessed the alcohol and thus could not furnish it to each other.
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Here, like the boys in Lather and unlike the friends in Rauck, Martin and Brothers jointly possessed the same alcohol, and thus could not “furnish” it to each other. The undisputed facts show no transfer of possession. Brothers ordered the keg, picked it up, and paid for it using a bank account containing commingled funds. Brothers and Martin therefore jointly bought the beer and “acquired possession of the [alcohol] simultaneously.” 519 N.E.2d at 763. We accordingly hold as a matter of law that Martin did not—and could not—“furnish” to Brothers what he already possessed.
Conclusion
We find that summary judgment was improper on the negligence claim as there remains a question of fact as to whether Martin breached the landowner–invitee “duty to protect” owed to Michalik. However, summary judgment was appropriate on plaintiffs’ Dram Shop Act claim because the plain meaning of “furnish” within the Act requires that Martin have transferred possession of the alcohol to Brothers, which she could not do, as they jointly possessed the beer in question. Accordingly, we affirm summary judgment in part and reverse in part.
Rucker, David, Massa, and Slaughter, JJ., concur.