Hawthorne v. Huffines Communities,
Inc.
Dallas Court of Appeals, No. 05-12-01316-CV (April 25, 2014)
Justices O’Neill, Myers (Opinion), and Brown
E.K., a thirteen-year-old girl, wrote her personal cell phone number on a community pool’s sign-in sheet. A lifeguard employed at the pool copied the phone number and, after hours, exchanged text messages with E.K. and met her off-premises, then sexually assaulted her in his car. The pool’s managers and owners were sued for negligence and violating the DTPA on the ground they failed to prevent their employee from accessing personal contact information for an improper purpose. The trial court granted summary judgment dismissing both claims, finding there was no evidence the failure to protect patrons’ information caused the assault.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. For conduct to be either the “proximate” or “producing” cause of an injury, the injury must be the “natural and probable result” of the conduct; it is not sufficient that the conduct furnished a condition that made the injury possible. The Court held the natural and probable result of allowing improper access to contact information was unwanted texts and phone calls, not sexual assault. And the lifeguard’s criminal actions were not the foreseeable result of the defendant’s conduct because there was no evidence of any other crime at the pool or in the community, and the lifeguard had never been arrested before for any other offense.
