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Strict liability isn’t the applicable standard in a case involving a blasting company whose work caused damage at a limestone quarry, the Court of Appeals of Indiana has affirmed.
Warex LLC, a company that provides explosives and blasting services, carried out a blast on a Paoli property owned by Cave Quarries, which conducts a limestone quarrying operation there.
The resulting explosion destroyed an asphalt plant on the property.
The blast in March 2021 was focused on a wall at the quarry that had to be lowered in phases, so Warex conducted multiple small blasts.
But because Cave Quarries was paying a fee for each blast, the company’s superintendent and Warex’s licensed blaster on site made a mutual decision to do a larger blast, which caused the damage.
Cave Quarries filed a complaint for damages against Warex. The quarry company alleged strict liability and negligence or, alternatively, negligence in its use of explosives.
Cave Quarries sought summary judgment declaring Warex liable for the damages, and Warex filed its own motion for summary judgment.
The Orange Circuit Court denied the motions, determining in part that strict liability was not the applicable standard and that material issues of fact exist regarding Cave Quarries’ negligence claim.
Cave Quarries appealed, arguing the trial court erred as a matter of law by denying its motion.
But the Court of Appeals disagreed.
In Indiana, the court noted, strict liability for blasting activities originated in the law of trespass, citing Enos Coal Mining Co. v. Schuchart, 188 N.E.2d 406 (Ind. 1962).
Indiana appellate courts haven’t decided a blasting case since 1973 in Galbreath v. Eng’g Constr. Corp., 273 N.E.2d 121 (Ind. Ct. App. 1973), the opinion says.
In that case — which involved a person injured indirectly by a blast — the court adopted a rule of strict liability for damages proximately caused by blasting: “We now therefore hold that if acknowledged extra-hazardous activity, e.g., blasting, proximately causes damage, whether by direct impact of debris or by concussion waves, or otherwise, the actor is absolutely liable for such damage without regard to his exercise of reasonable care in the carrying out of such activity.”
The Court of Appeals took Cave Quarries’ argument to mean strict liability automatically applies “based solely on the nature of the activity without consideration of the accompanying facts.”
“Just as the courts in Enos and Galbreath before us, we are asked to decide if a set of facts not previously addressed by our appellate courts subjects the blaster to strict liability,” the opinion says. “Unlike the courts in Enos and Galbreath, however — each of which found no logical reason not to extend the rule of strict liability to the facts of those cases — we do find such reason here.”
The Court of Appeals said it agreed with Cave Quarries’ general premise that blasting has long been considered an “ultrahazardous or abnormally dangerous activity” that’s subject to a strict liability standard in Indiana.
But the opinion goes on to point out two elements that distinguish this case from past cases.
First is that the instant case isn’t the “classic example of an abnormally dangerous activity historically subject to strict liability,” the opinion says, citing Selby v. N. Ind. Pub. Serv. Co., 851 N.E.2d 333 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006).
Second is that strict liability as applied in past cases appropriately placed the risk of loss from a dangerous, unpredictable activity “on the one who benefits from the activity rather than an innocent party,” the opinion says, citing Haseman v. Orman, 680 N.E.2d 531 (Ind. 1997).
“We accept the historical rule in Indiana that blasting is an abnormally dangerous activity,” the opinion says, “but we decline to find Warex is subject to strict liability under these facts because neither the purpose nor the policy behind imposing strict liability for blasting activities would be served by doing so here.”
The case was remanded for further proceedings on Cave Quarries’ remaining count of negligence.
Judge Dana Kenworthy wrote the opinion. Judge Terry Crone and Senior Judge Margret Robb concurred.
The case is Cave Quarries, Inc. v. Warex LLC, 22A-CT-1916.
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