Molter, J.
Defendant Warex LLC sells controlled explosive and blasting services to break or remove rock and other materials. After Plaintiff Cave Quarries, Inc. hired Warex to blast a quarry rock wall, the plan went awry, and the explosion instead leveled the quarry’s asphalt plant. Cave Quarries sued Warex for the damage, and because the parties’ oral contract didn’t cover this scenario, Cave Quarries turned to tort law, asserting claims for strict liability and negligence.
For well over a century, Indiana’s common law has treated blasting as an abnormally dangerous activity subject to strict liability for damage to neighbors and other bystanders. But this case doesn’t involve any damage to neighbors or bystanders. The only damage was to Cave Quarries’ own asphalt plant located on its own property. So this interlocutory appeal presents a question of first impression in Indiana: Is a blasting company strictly liable for damage it causes to its blasting customer, or is the company instead liable to its customer only for negligence?
…
Cave Quarries aptly frames the issue on appeal: “Whether a blasting company, which is wholly responsible for planning and executing blasting activities, is strictly liable to its customers for harm caused by its blasting activities.” Appellant’s Br. at 7. Cave Quarries argues the answer is yes because Indiana has long treated blasting as an abnormally dangerous activity subject to strict liability. Warex acknowledges that Indiana imposes strict liability for blasting damage to neighbors and bystanders. But it argues the policy rationale for protecting those who are not involved in and not the beneficiaries of the blasting does not support extending strict liability for damage to customers who participate in the blasting by hiring a company to undertake the blasting for the customer’s benefit. For damage to blasting customers, Warex argues, the ordinary negligence standards and defenses should apply.
…
Like the trial court and Court of Appeals, we agree with Warex. Below, we first discuss Indiana’s treatment of blasting as an abnormally dangerous activity subject to strict liability for damage to neighbors and bystanders. Then we explain why, like the Court of Appeals, we continue to take that bright‐line approach, declining Warex’s invitation to instead evaluate the utility and dangerousness of blasting case‐by‐case through a six‐factor balancing test. Cave Quarries, Inc., 219 N.E.3d at 228 n.7. And finally, we explain our holding, which places cases like this one on the other side of that bright line: strict liability does not extend to damage to a customer who hires the defendant to conduct the blasting, although the blaster remains liable to their customer for negligent conduct.
Tort law imposes on us all a “duty of reasonable care under the circumstances,” and when we act unreasonably under the circumstances, we’re negligent. Johnson v. Scandia Assocs., Inc., 717 N.E.2d 24, 29 (Ind. 1999). Under this negligence standard, an injured party may recover for their damage by proving: (1) the defendant owed them a duty; (2) the defendant breached that duty through conduct that fell below the appropriate level of care; and (3) the defendant’s breach caused injury to the plaintiff. Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar & Grill, Inc., 62 N.E.3d 384, 386 (Ind. 2016).
But some commercial activities are so dangerous that we impose a harsher rule, holding defendants liable for damage they cause even when they did act reasonably under the circumstances. Cook v. Whitsell‐Sherman, 796 N.E.2d 271, 276 (Ind. 2003). That is, we impose “strict liability,” which “assumes no negligence of the actor, but chooses to impose liability anyway.” Id. One reason for this rule is that while the dangerous activity is valuable enough for the law to tolerate it, the business must still “bear its own costs, burdens, and expenses of operation”—including costs for the damage the business causes. Enos Coal Mining Co. v. Schuchart, 188 N.E.2d 406, 408 (Ind. 1963). Those costs can then “be distributed by means of the price of the resulting product” rather than shifting them “to persons who are not involved in such business ventures for profit.” Id.
For almost 150 years, our appellate courts have treated blasting as one such activity. And they have held defendants are strictly liable when their blasting damages neighbors and bystanders. Our Court held that a quarry was strictly liable when its blasting launched debris that severely injured a plaintiff who was traveling down a nearby road, Wright v. Compton, 53 Ind. 337 (1876), and we held a coal mining company was strictly liable when vibrations from its blasting caused structural damage to a nearby home, Enos Coal Mining Co., 188 N.E.2d at 406. Our Court of Appeals held that a construction company was strictly liable when it detonated dynamite close to a gas line, causing an explosion that injured a utility worker repairing the line. Galbreath v. Eng’g Const. Corp., 273 N.E.2d 121, 125 (Ind. Ct. App. 1971). And that court has repeatedly recognized that Indiana treats blasting as an abnormally dangerous activity. Selby v. N. Ind. Pub. Serv. Co., 851 N.E.2d 333, 338 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006) (recognizing “the longstanding categorization of blasting as an abnormally dangerous activity susceptible to strict liability”); Hedges v. Pub. Serv. Co. of Ind., 396 N.E.2d 933, 936 n.4 (Ind. Ct. App. 1979) (recognizing that Indiana has “applied the doctrine of strict liability for ultra‐hazardous activities in cases involving blasting operations”).
While our courts have taken a bright‐line approach to treating blasting as an abnormally dangerous activity, Warex suggests that, going forward, we should adopt a “more flexible approach.” Appellee’s Br. at 20. Under Warex’s proposed framework, judges would balance the risks against the benefits of blasting in the individual circumstances of each case to decide whether strict liability should apply. We consider that proposal next.
…
“Blasting operations are dangerous and must pay their own way.” Enos Coal Mining Co., 188 N.E.2d at 408; see also, Dobbs et al., supra, § 441(“The idea is not necessarily to deter such activities altogether but to make them ‘pay their way’ by charging them with liability for harms that are more or less inevitably associated with the activity.”). While a “citizen may be deprived of his home or other property by the proper exercise of the power of eminent domain,” through which he receives just compensation, “it ought not to be said that [the property] can be lawfully destroyed without compensation in the interest of a mere business enterprise, simply because such enterprise is of great magnitude and general public interest.” Enos Coal Mining Co., 188 N.E.2d at 408. No matter how great blasting’s value, that value doesn’t justify permitting businesses to shift the costs of damage to “small neighboring property owners for them to bear alone.” Id. “We can understand no sensible or reasonable principle of law for shifting such expense or loss to persons who are not involved in such business ventures for profit.” Id. Better instead that those doing the blasting shoulder the costs of the damage they cause in the first instance and then socialize those costs through price increases in the business for which the blasting is required. Id.
We thus see no good reason to change course. That said, we also have no need to criticize or confirm those Indiana cases that have looked to Section 520 of the Second Restatement to determine whether other activities are abnormally dangerous in other contexts. See, e.g., Fechtman v. U.S. Steel Corp., 994 N.E.2d 1243, 1247 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013) (applying the Section 520 factors and determining that the defendant’s emptying of a dust catcher machine was not an abnormally dangerous activity). Whatever utility Section 520 has in those contexts, “blasting has traditionally been considered the epitome of an abnormal or ultrahazardous activity,” so for blasting we continue to take the bright‐ line approach reflected in the First and Third Restatements. 7 Stuart M. Speiser et al., American Law of Torts § 19:9 (2024); see also Restatement (Third) of Torts: Physical & Emotional Harm § 20 cmt. e (describing blasting as “a paradigm case for strict liability”).
III. We do not extend strict liability for blasting damage to a customer who participated in the blasting by hiring the defendant to conduct the explosion.
While we agree with Cave Quarries that we should preserve the bright‐ line rule that blasting is an abnormally dangerous activity subject to strict liability, that does not answer the question here: Strictly liable to whom? Cave Quarries says the answer is that a blasting company is strictly liable to anyone damaged by its blasting. Warex says that strict liability should apply to neighbors and bystanders but not one who participates in the blasting as a customer hiring the defendant to perform the blast for the customer’s benefit.
…
Indeed, Indiana law holds the customer just as responsible for damage to neighbors and bystanders as the blasting company the customer hires to conduct the explosion. Id. at 535 n.6 (“The employer of an independent contractor is generally not liable for the negligence of the contractor, but an exception exists for work that is intrinsically dangerous.”). So, for example, Cave Quarries acknowledges that if the blast here had damaged someone else’s building on a nearby property, Cave Quarries would be strictly liable for that damage even though it hired Warex as an independent contractor to conduct the explosion. Oral Argument at 8:40. For this sort of dangerous activity, the law does not permit the customer to delegate their responsibility to an independent contractor. No matter who took the lead, both Warex and Cave Quarries undertook the blasting together, so both are strictly liable.
And as for blasting’s burdens, customers like Cave Quarries again aren’t similarly situated to neighbors and bystanders. We impose strict liability for blasting damage “to protect innocent third parties or innocent bystanders.” Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical & Emotional Harm § 24 cmt. a. But blasting customers are not “innocent”— they too are responsible for blasting damage. And they do not require the same protections as neighbors and bystanders because they can protect themselves.
…
In short, tort law leaves blasting customers to bear blasting’s costs because they reap its benefits too. And even beyond the protection that the negligence standard continues to provide those customers, they have adequate means to protect themselves through contract law.
Arguing that strict liability should apply for damage to customers too, Cave Quarries points us back to the Restatement of Torts, which, as we’ve explained, generally imposes strict liability for abnormally dangerous activities. But all three versions of the Restatement confirm that strict liability should not apply here. The First Restatement excludes strict liability for abnormally dangerous activities when the plaintiff “takes part in” the abnormally dangerous activity. Restatement (First) of Torts § 523. And “one may take part in an activity as . . . the employer of an independent contractor employed to carry it on or to do work which necessarily involves it.” Id. cmt. c. That is precisely what happened here. Cave Quarries employed Warex as an independent contractor to conduct the blasting.
…
Again, Cave Quarries hired Warex as an independent contractor to perform the blasting, and there is no dispute that Cave Quarries is generally familiar with the risks of blasting that make it an abnormally dangerous activity (even if Cave Quarries was not familiar with the more specific risk that an undiscovered mud seam could lead to the explosion that leveled its asphalt plant). Appellant’s Reply Br. at 41 (acknowledging that the “depositions of Cave employees show that they were aware that blasting can be dangerous,” though emphasizing the employees relied on Warex to ensure a safe blast); see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 523 cmt. c (“The risk inseparable from the great majority of abnormally dangerous activities is, however, a matter of such common knowledge and general notoriety that in the absence of special circumstances, as when he has been misled by the defendant or when he is too young to appreciate the risk, a plaintiff may often be found to have the knowledge notwithstanding his own denial.”). Cave Quarries asserts that Indiana has not adopted the assumption of risk defense in Section 523 of the Second Restatement and that the general rule governing strict liability from Section 519 should govern here. But the Second Restatement instructs that Section 519 “should be read together with §§ 520 to 524A, by which it is limited.” Id. § 519 cmt. a.
So under any version of the Restatement, Cave Quarries cannot recover under a strict liability standard. And that conclusion is in line with the other courts that have squarely considered this question.
…
A final word about the breadth of our holding. There is very little daylight between our analysis and Judge Kenworthy’s thorough, well‐ reasoned opinion for the unanimous Court of Appeals panel. The only material difference—and the reason we don’t adopt that opinion as our own—is that one could read the Court of Appeals’ opinion as applying a negligence rather than strict liability standard based on “the unique circumstances of this blast,” which included that “Cave Quarries decided where the blast would take place” on its property, and Cave Quarries “asked for a larger blast on March 3 because of concerns over the cost of multiple smaller blasts.” Cave Quarries, Inc., 219 N.E.3d at 228. That might suggest that a trial court should take the sort of case‐by‐case approach that we rejected above.
Instead, we maintain the bright‐line rule that a party is strictly liable for the damage its blasting causes to neighbors and bystanders, but not to one who hires the blaster. As we’ve explained, the contours of that rule in the blasting context are well stated in the First and Third Restatements. And while facts like the degree to which Cave Quarries directed Warex about where, how, and why to conduct the blast are not relevant to determining which standard governs—strict liability or negligence—they remain relevant to whether Warex was negligent and the parties’ comparative fault.
For these reasons, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Cave Quarries’ motion for summary judgment, and we remand for the trial court (1) to enter judgment for Warex and against Cave Quarries on Count I of Cave Quarries’ Complaint for Damages alleging a strict liability claim, and (2) to proceed on Cave Quarries’ negligence claim in Count II.
Rush, C.J., and Massa, Slaughter, and Goff, JJ., concur.