No. 16-1597
IN THE
Supreme Court of the Principality of Verona
_________
LORD AND LADY MONTAGUE,
LORD AND LADY CAPULET,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
FRIAR LAURENCE,
Defendant-Appellant.
_________
On Writ of Certiorari to the
Verona Court of Appeals
_________
BRIEF FOR PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES
_________
KARL A. RACINE
Attorney General for the
District of Columbia
Counsel of Record
OFFICE OF THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL
441 4th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 727-3400
Counsel for PlaintiffsAppellees
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
1. Was there sufficient evidence to support the
jury’s finding that Friar Laurence was negligent in
causing the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?
2. Was there sufficient evidence to support the
jury’s finding that Friar Laurence’s negligence in the
deaths of Romeo and Juliet was comparatively
greater than the parents’ negligence in the aftermath
of the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt?
BRIEF FOR THE PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES
Plaintiffs-Appellees Lord and Lady Montague and
Lord and Lady Capulet request that this Court
affirm the jury’s verdict that Friar Laurence was 70
percent responsible for the deaths of their children,
Romeo and Juliet.
OPINION BELOW
The decision of the court below is unreported.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
For generations the noble families of Montague
and Capulet were engaged in civil strife in the
streets of Verona. It took the tragic suicides of their
beloved Romeo and Juliet, caused by the repeated
recklessness of Friar Laurence, to make the families
reconcile their intense hatred and distrust of each
other.
Romeo, the son of Lord Montague, was
encouraged by his friend Benvolio to crash a
masquerade ball held by Lord Capulet for the
purpose of having Juliet, Capulet’s daughter, meet
Paris, a kinsman of Prince Escalus of Verona.
Capulet wanted Juliet to marry Paris. Romeo, leery
of sneaking into the ball, and sensing some “vile
forfeit of untimely death” (I.4.111),1 went anyway
and spotted Juliet across the ballroom floor. Wearing
masks and not immediately recognizing each other,
1
All references to Romeo and Juliet are to the Arden Shakespeare
edition, ed. by René Weis (Bloomsbury 2012).
2
they danced and eventually kissed and fell madly in
love. Later that night after the ball, Juliet spoke of
her love for Romeo from her bedroom balcony,
unaware that Romeo was hiding below and hearing
her every word. Despite her love for Romeo, she
wondered why she had to fall in love with a
Montague. (II.2.33).
Romeo hurried to his trusted spiritual advisor
and confidant Friar Laurence to express his love for
Juliet. The intensity of Romeo’s love alarmed Friar
Laurence—“These violent delights have violent
ends,” (II.6.9)—and knowing that Romeo was an
impetuous and impulsive youth, he cautioned Romeo
to “love moderately.” (II.6.14). However, once Friar
Laurence learned that the object of Romeo’s newest
infatuation was Juliet of the rival Capulet family, he
proceeded to give Romeo advice that ran counter to
his previously stated belief to go “[w]isely and slow,
they stumble that run fast.” (II.3.90). Believing
without reasonable justification that his intervention
would end the long-standing feud between the
Montagues and Capulets, Friar Laurence quickly
disregarded the skepticism that he had shown
towards Romeo’s previous obsessions and hastily
agreed to perform a secret wedding for Romeo and
Juliet without the knowledge or consent of the
families. He married the couple in a covert ceremony.
(II.6.37).
The Friar’s short-sighted and arrogant ploy to
end the family feud immediately began to unravel.
The conflict between the Montagues and Capulets
sharpened when Mercutio, Romeo’s close friend, has
a duel in the street with Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin.
Mercutio captured the intensity and tension of the
moment when he shouted, “A plague on both your
houses.” (III.1.101-02). Romeo came upon the duel
and, now married to a Capulet, unsuccessfully tried
to stop the fight. Tybalt killed Mercutio, and Romeo,
in an uncontrollable moment of rage, then killed
3
Tybalt, aware that his rash behavior has made him a
“fortune’s fool.” (III.1.138). As a result of Tybalt’s
death, Prince Escalus showed mercy and banned
Romeo from Verona instead of imposing upon Romeo
the punishment of death.
Friar Laurence, in his next moment of reckless
behavior, arranged for Romeo to secretly spend the
night with Juliet. Romeo revealed his intense level of
anxiety to the Friar by saying that banishment from
Verona would be like cutting “my head off with a
golden axe.” (III.3.22). The next morning Romeo fled
Verona. He had one last meeting with Juliet, who
was so distraught by their parting that she saw
Romeo “as one dead in the bottom of the tomb.”
(III.5.56).
Lord Capulet, unaware of the secret wedding
between Romeo and Juliet, and upset over the death
of Tybalt, decided that Juliet and Paris would marry
in three days. Juliet turned to her Nurse for advice,
who counselled her to forget Romeo, a Montague, and
to instead marry Paris, an heir to royalty. Juliet
rejected this advice—concluding that the Nurse was
a “wicked fiend” (III.5.237)—and instead sought the
advice of Friar Laurence, telling the priest that she
would rather kill herself than marry Paris. Friar
Laurence then concocted another “desperate” plan.
(IV.1.69-70). This new scheme called for Juliet to
drink one of the priest’s secret potions the night
before her wedding to Paris that will make it appear
that she has committed suicide. Friar Laurence told
Juliet that he would inform Romeo of the plan in
order that Romeo could come and get her when she
awakened from the secret potion so they could run
away and live happily ever after. Juliet agreed with
the plan, although “a faint cold fear thrills through
[my] veins.” (IV.3.15).
Believing that Romeo would never return, and
not wanting to marry Paris, Juliet decided to drink
the potion. The Nurse found Juliet, and believing
4
that she was dead, informed the Capulets who take
Juliet to the family crypt for burial. Friar Laurence,
knowing what really has happened, lied to Paris by
telling him that Juliet has died and is “advanced
above the clouds, as high as heaven itself.” (IV.5.7374). Recognizing the problem he would cause if
Romeo should hear that Juliet is dead, Friar
Laurence scurried to get a message to Romeo to
inform him that Juliet was not actually dead and
that Romeo should rush to and retrieve Juliet from
the crypt before she awakened.
In yet another careless act, Friar Laurence did
not go to inform Romeo of these convoluted plans
himself but entrusted the delivery of the message to
a fellow priest. The priest, quarantined by the
plague, never gets to tell Romeo that Juliet is still
alive. Instead, Romeo heard that Juliet had
committed suicide. He took a vial of poison with him
to the Capulet crypt so that he could die alongside
Juliet. As he approached the crypt, Romeo came
upon Paris, who was placing flowers on Juliet’s body.
Romeo became enraged and killed Paris. When he
saw Juliet apparently dead, he drank the poison. The
“drugs are quick” and he died instantly. (V.3.120).
In the meantime, Friar Laurence raced to the
crypt so that he could explain to Romeo that Juliet
was actually still alive. Once again, the careless
priest compounded the situation by arriving too late,
only to find Paris and Romeo dead. Juliet awakened
and was unaware that Romeo had committed
suicide. Friar Laurence heard the Capulet cemetery
guards rapidly approaching and he tried to hurry
Juliet away from the “death, contagion and
unnatural sleep” that he has caused. (V.3.152). Juliet
refused to leave, and then she saw Romeo dead.
Rather than remaining to console the newly-widowed
Juliet, whom Friar Laurence had reason to believe
was suicidal, the flummoxed Friar fled the scene,
displaying his consciousness of guilt. Juliet,
5
abandoned, alone, and filled with uncontrollable
grief, kissed Romeo’s lips in the hope that a drop of
poison would quickly kill her. When Juliet did not
die immediately, she grabbed Romeo’s dagger and
killed herself and fell on Romeo’s body.
In the end, Friar Laurence admitted to Prince
Escalus that his tragic and senseless plans were
“miscarried by my fault” (V.3.267). The untimely and
senseless deaths of Romeo and Juliet moved the
Montagues and Capulets to end their conflict and, in
memory of their children, they erected gold statues
in the public square. Distraught over the meddling
and careless behavior of the Franciscan priest, they
jointly sued Friar Laurence for negligence. A jury
properly found for the families. Friar Laurence
appealed.
ARGUMENT
I. THE JURY’S FINDING THAT FRIAR
LAURENCE WAS NEGLIGENT IN CAUSING
THE DEATHS OF ROMEO AND JULIET IS
SUPPORTED BY THE EVIDENCE
“[N]egligence is the lack of ordinary care under
all of the circumstances.” Paramount Dev. Corp. v.
Hunter, 238 A.2d 869, 871 (Md. 1968). To prove a
negligence claim in Verona, a plaintiff must
establish: “(1) that the defendant was under a duty
to protect the plaintiff from injury; (2) that the
defendant breached that duty; (3) that the plaintiff
suffered actual injury or loss; and (4) that the loss or
injury proximately resulted from the defendant's
breach of the duty.” Washington Metro. Area Transit
Auth. v. Seymour, 874 A.2d 973, 976 (Md. 2005)
(citations omitted). All four elements exist in this
case. As the architect of the plan to assist Juliet’s
escape from her arranged marriage to Paris by
tricking her family into believing she committed
6
suicide, Friar Laurence had a duty to ensure that the
plan was executed with reasonable care. Friar
Laurence breached that duty by failing to take
reasonable steps to ensure that Romeo, who Friar
Laurence had reason to believe would react rashly
and violently to news of Juliet’s death, was informed
of the plan.
As a direct result of breaching this duty, Romeo,
believing Juliet to be dead, took his own life. This
breach of duty was compounded when Friar
Laurence, knowing that Juliet had earlier confessed
to him that she would rather die than live without
Romeo, also took her life when the Friar inexplicably
fled from the chaos of his creation. However wellmeaning Friar Laurence’s civic intentions were, they
do not excuse his reckless decision to put into motion
a plan so careless it could only end in tragedy.
Because Friar Laurence’s failure to take reasonable
and ordinary care led directly to the deaths of Romeo
and Juliet, the jury’s verdict should be upheld.
1. Friar Laurence’s personal knowledge of the
couple’s propensities to react rashly and
violently to news of each other’s death and
his substantial role in the design and
execution of Juliet’s escape plan gave rise to
a duty to ensure that Romeo did not
mistakenly think that Juliet was dead
“As a general principle, ‘a defendant owes a duty
of care to all persons who are foreseeably endangered
by his conduct, with respect to all risks which make
the conduct unreasonably dangerous.’” Tarasoff v.
Regents of Univ. of California, 551 P.2d 334, 342
(Cal.1976) (internal citation omitted). In applying
this rule, the major considerations are (1) the nature
of the harm likely to result from a failure to exercise
due care; and (2) the relationship that exists between
the parties. Jacques v. First Nat. Bank of Maryland,
7
515 A.2d 756, 759 (Md. 1986). In cases involving
personal injury or death, “the principal determinant
of duty becomes foreseeability.” 100 Inv. Ltd. P'ship
v. Columbia Town Ctr. Title Co., 60 A.3d 1, 11 (Md.
2013). At the time that Friar Laurence commenced
his plan to help Juliet escape Verona with Romeo, he
knew that both Romeo and Juliet would react
violently to news of the other’s death. Thus, Friar
Laurence had a duty to ensure that the plan was
carried out responsibly.
In particular, Friar Laurence knew that Romeo
had a “distempered head” (II.3.29), based on his
knowledge of how Romeo impulsively killed Tybalt
after Mercutio’s death, and Friar Laurence should
have foreseen that Romeo might do himself harm if
he believed that Juliet was dead. Similarly, Friar
Laurence knew that Juliet’s desire to be with Romeo
was so intense that, in his words, Juliet “hast the
strength of will to slay [her]self” if she were forced to
marry Paris. (IV.1.76). Thus, Friar Laurence should
have foreseen that Juliet would likely commit suicide
if she could not be with Romeo, and from his
understanding of Juliet’s devotion to Romeo, Friar
Laurence should have realized that Juliet would
likely take her own life if his escape plan failed.
2. Friar Laurence’s breach of his duty to
Romeo and Juliet was the proximate cause
of their deaths
Courts generally consider “an act which . . . a
reasonable man should recognize as involving an
unreasonable risk of causing an invasion of an
interest of another” to be negligent conduct.
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 284 (1965). This
definition encompasses situations where “a
reasonable man knowing so much of the
circumstances surrounding the actor at the time of
his act as the actor knows or should know, would
8
realize the existence of the risk and its unreasonable
character.” Id. at cmt. a. As noted, at the time Friar
Laurence put in motion his plan to help Juliet
escape, he knew both of Romeo’s tendencies towards
rash, violent action at times of emotional distress,
and of Juliet’s wish that she should die if she could
not be with her husband. Under these circumstances,
no reasonable person would have put in motion a
plan that had a high risk of either Romeo or Juliet
believing the other to be dead. Yet this is precisely
what Friar Laurence did.
Friar Laurence’s plan had an obvious and
foreseeable flaw: unless Romeo was informed of the
nature of the potion Juliet drank, there was a strong
possibility that he would learn of Juliet’s death,
either from seeing her seemingly-lifeless body or by
rumor that she was dead, either of which would
cause him to conclude that Juliet had died. In fact,
this flaw was so apparent that Friar Laurence sent a
letter by messenger explaining the plan to Romeo to
ensure that Romeo did not make this mistake.
Unfortunately, Friar Laurence’s letter never
arrived, a fact that Friar Laurence would have
known if he had taken care to follow up with his
messenger or intercept Romeo at the Capulet crypt.
Because Friar Laurence’s letter failed to arrive,
Romeo, hearing rumors of Juliet’s supposed death,
hurried back to Verona to find what appeared to be
Juliet’s lifeless body. Upon seeing Juliet, Romeo
understandably mistook her deep sleep for death.
Consequently, Friar Laurence’s failure to ensure
that Romeo learned of his plan was a clear failure to
exercise ordinary care, and the jury’s verdict should
be upheld.
9
II. THERE WAS SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO
SUPPORT A FINDING OF COMPARATIVE
NEGLIGENCE
IN
FAVOR
OF
THE
MONTAGUES AND CAPULETS
Verona is a comparative negligence jurisdiction.
In a comparative negligence jurisdiction, any
recoverable damages are reduced by the proportion
of fault that is attributable to the plaintiff. See
Black’s Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009).
Courts
typically have held that the allocation of
“[c]omparative negligence is usually a jury question
and should only be decided as a matter of law where
there is ‘no valid line of reasoning and permissible
inferences’ which could lead a rational jury to
conclude that the plaintiff was negligent.” Charleston
v. City of N.Y., 954 N.Y.S.2d 34, 35 (2012). In
general, a jury’s decision allocating fault is upheld
where the allocation represents a “fair interpretation
of the evidence.” Id. Some factors that juries may use
to assign relative responsibility between parties are
“(a) the nature of the person's risk-creating conduct,
including any awareness or indifference with respect
to the risks created by the conduct and any intent
with respect to the harm created by the conduct; and
(b) the strength of the causal connection between the
person's risk-creating conduct and the harm.”
Restatement (Third) of Torts: Apportionment Liab. §
8 (2000).
In deciding whether the jury’s apportionment of
fault between the parties is reasonable, courts have
consistently held that “[tort] liability may not be
imposed if . . . the negligence of one person is merely
passive and potential, while the negligence of
another is the moving and effective cause of the
injury.” Peterson v. Underwood, 264 A.2d 851, 855
(Md. 1970). In other words, in a situation in which
there are two potentially negligent parties, one of
whom may have set the stage for potential injury,
10
and one of whom set into motion the chain of events
that directly led to the injury, it is the latter party
that is mostly at fault.
Here, the actions of the Montagues and Capulets
and the actions of Friar Laurence fit this paradigm
perfectly. Though the Montague/Capulet feud may
have had some role in shaping the relationship
between Romeo and Juliet, it was only the actions of
Friar Laurence that directly set in motion the chain
of events that led to their deaths by concocting a plan
fraught with enormous potential for error and
misjudgment. The jury correctly recognized that
Friar Laurence’s negligence played a far greater role
in the deaths of Romeo and Juliet than did their
parents’ feud, and its verdict should be upheld.
1. The causal link between the Montague/
Capulet feud and the deaths of Romeo and
Juliet is too attenuated to support a finding
of comparative negligence against the
Montagues and Capulets
In Verona, “[w]hen two or more independent
negligent acts bring about an injury . . . the
substantial factor test controls. Causation-in-fact
may be found if it is ‘more likely than not’ that the
defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in
producing the plaintiff's injuries.” Pittway Corp. v.
Collins, 973 A.2d 771, 787 (Md. 2009) (internal
citation omitted). The question of whether an act is
considered a “substantial factor” depends on: “(a) the
number of other factors which contribute in
producing the harm and the extent of the effect
which they have in producing it; (b) whether the
actor's conduct has created a force or series of forces
which are in continuous and active operation up to
the time of the harm, or has created a situation
harmless unless acted upon by other forces of which
the actor is not responsible; [and] (c) lapse of time.”
11
Id. Under this test, it is difficult to see how any feud
between the families could constitute a “substantial
factor” in Romeo and Juliet’s suicides. Although it is
true that the Montagues and the Capulets probably
would not have approved of Romeo and Juliet’s
marriage because of the families’ ongoing feud, many
other forces played a much larger role in their
decision to commit suicide, with the most direct
being the ill-conceived advice of Friar Laurence.
Even if one were to acknowledge that the
Montague/Capulet feud was a substantial factor
contributing to Romeo’s and Juliet’s death, the feud
still cannot be considered a legal cause because
suicide is an independent superseding act that
breaks any causal chain. Courts have held that
“suicide is an independent superseding act or, in any
event, not proximately caused by the negligent act,
which precludes imposing liability on a third party
for the suicide of another.” Sindler v. Litman, 887
A.2d 97, 110 (Md. 2005). However, courts have also
recognized an exception to this rule where a
defendant’s actions “resulted in the decedent's
having an uncontrollable impulse to commit suicide.”
Id. at 112-113. Under this rule, the fact that Romeo
and Juliet committed suicide precludes a finding that
the Montagues and Capulets are liable unless their
feud directly caused Romeo and Juliet to be overcome
by an uncontrollable suicidal impulse. However, the
evidence clearly shows that it was the devastation
caused by learning of each other’s death resulting
from Friar Laurence’s scheme, not angst over their
parents’ disapproval of their marriage, which
compelled Romeo and Juliet to commit suicide.
12
2. Friar Laurence’s actions directly caused
both Romeo and Juliet to believe the other
to be dead, which caused them to have an
uncontrollable impulse to commit suicide
Unlike the Montagues and the Capulets, Friar
Laurence, through his plan to help Romeo and Juliet
escape from Verona, took actions that were
substantial factors that led to their deaths. Friar
Laurence was not only the person who planned
Juliet’s escape, but he was the person who gave her
the secret potion that led Romeo to think she had
died. Moreover, despite being the only person who
knew that Juliet was not actually dead from taking
the potion, Friar Laurence failed to make certain
that Romeo was made aware of this fact. Thus, by
both his affirmative acts and his failure to act when
he had a duty to do so, Friar Laurence’s behavior
was the substantial factor in Romeo’s and Juliet’s
deaths. The jury was correct to find Friar Laurence
primarily responsible for the deaths of Romeo and
Juliet.
13
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court should
affirm the jury’s verdict.
Respectfully submitted,
KARL A. RACINE
Attorney General for the
District of Columbia
Counsel of Record
OFFICE OF THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL
441 4th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 727-3400
Counsel for PlaintiffsAppellees
November 17, 2016