Case Title: BRINDA FROST v. MICHAEL and RITA ALLRED, husband and wife

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 2006-12-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
BRINDA FROST v. MICHAEL and RITA ALLRED, husband and wife2006 WY 155148 P.3d 17Case Number: No. 06-24Decided: 12/15/2006
OCTOBER 
TERM, A.D. 2006

 
 
BRINDA 
FROST,

 
 
Appellant

(Plaintiff),

 
 
v.

 
 
MICHAEL 
and RITA ALLRED, husband and wife,

 
 
Appellees

(Defendants).

 
 
Appeal 
from the DistrictCourtofFremontCounty

 
 

Representing 
Appellant:

John C. 
Schumacher of Law Office of John Schumacher, of Riverton, Wyoming, and Mark J. 
White of White & White, P.C., Riverton, Wyoming.  Argument by Mr. 
Schumacher.

 
 

Representing 
Appellees:

Gary R. 
Scott of Hirst & Applegate, P.C., Cheyenne, Wyoming.

 
 
Before 
VOIGT, C.J., and GOLDEN, HILL, KITE, and BURKE, 
JJ.

 
 

VOIGT, Chief Justice.

 
 
[¶1]      The focus of this 
case is upon the question of what, if any, instructions should be given to a 
jury in regard to whether an alleged building code violation equates to 
negligence per se.  The jury in this case, in the absence of 
such an instruction, returned a verdict in favor of the defendant 
appellees.  We 
affirm.

 
 
ISSUES

 
 
[¶2]     1.   Whether the district court erred in 
instructing the jury that violation of a building code could be considered as 
evidence of negligence, rather than that such a violation was negligence per se?

 
 
           
2.   Whether the district 
court erred in permitting the jury to determine which of two versions of the 
Uniform Building Code applied in this case?

 
 
FACTS

 
 
[¶3]      The appellant was 
employed by the appellees as a housekeeper.  On November 20, 2001, she fell after 
exiting the front door of the appellees' house, breaking her ankle.  She sued the appellees, alleging, inter alia, that the appellees had 
violated the building code of the City of Riverton because their front porch landing had 
an excessive slope.  The following 
chronology of significant events is undisputed:

 
 
           
1.   The City of Riverton 
adopted the 1979 version of the Uniform Building Code (UBC) on March 3, 1981. 
 The 1979 version of the UBC 
contained no provision relating to the slope of a front porch 
landing.

 
 
           
2.   The City of Riverton 
issued a Certificate of Occupancy for the house on October 1, 1981, indicating 
that the house was in compliance with the City's building 
ordinances.

 
 
           
3.   The City of Riverton 
adopted the 1997 version of the UBC on September 1, 1998. The 1997 version of 
the UBC provides that a landing should not have more than a two percent 
slope.

 
 
           
4.   The appellees 
purchased the house in October 2000, and did no remodeling that affected the 
slope of the front landing.

 
 
[¶4]      The controversy 
presented to this Court focuses upon the jury instructions, particularly 
Instruction No. 20:

 
 
The 
parties have presented conflicting evidence concerning the application of the 
1997 Uniform Building Code to the Allreds' front landing in November of 
2001.  It is up to you as the jury 
to decide whether or not the Allreds were required to comply with the 1997 
Uniform Building Code.  If you find 
the 1997 Uniform Building Code applied to the Allreds you may consider that as 
evidence of negligence  You should 
consider all of the circumstances surrounding non-compliance, including, whether 
the provisions of the Code were known by the general 
public.

 
 
Both 
issues arise out of this instructionthe question of whether the jury should be 
left to decide which version of the UBC applied to the appellees' house, and the 
question of whether a violation of the 1997 version, if it applied, could be 
considered as evidence of negligence, or constituted negligence per se.

 
 
[¶5]      Other facts will 
be discussed as they relate to the issues.

 
 
STANDARD 
OF REVIEW

 
 
[¶6]      We have stated 
our standard for the review of jury instructions many times, one of the recent 
reiterations being found in Pauley v. 
Newman, 2004 WY 76, ¶6, 92 P.3d 819, 821-22 (Wyo. 
2004):

 
 
            
We review alleged jury instruction error as 
follows:

 
 
"In 
considering the validity of instructions to a jury, we must determine whether 
the instructions, taken as a whole, adequately advise[d] the jury of the 
applicable law.  Banks v. Crowner, 694 P.2d 101 
(Wyo.1985).  Proper instructions 
should be clear declarations of the pertinent law.  Short v. Spring Creek Ranch, Inc., 731 P.2d 1195 (Wyo.1987).  The ruling of 
a trial court on an instruction will not constitute reversible error unless 
there is a showing of prejudice, which connotes a demonstration by the 
complaining party that the instruction misled or confused the jury with respect 
to the applicable principles of law.  
DeJulio v. Foster, 715 P.2d 182 (Wyo.1986)."

 
 

Ormsby 
v. Dana Kepner Co. of Wyo., Inc., 997 P.2d 465, 471 (Wyo.2000) (quoting L.U. Sheep 
Co. v. Board of County Comm'rs of County of Hot Springs, 790 P.2d 663, 672 
(Wyo.1990)).  See also Jensen v. Fremont Motors Cody, 
Inc., 2002 WY 173, ¶ 12, 58 P.3d 322, 326 (Wyo.2002).  "To measure the degree of prejudice, 
jury instructions are viewed in the light of the entire trial, including the 
allegations of the complaint, conflict in the evidence on critical issues and 
the arguments of counsel."  State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. v. Shrader, 
882 P.2d 813, 832 (Wyo.1994).

 
 
[¶7]      We review a trial 
court's decision whether or not to adopt a legislative enactment or an 
administrative regulation as the standard of conduct under an abuse of 
discretion standard.  Landsiedel v. Buffalo Prop., LLC, 2005 WY 61, ¶ 23, 112 P.3d 610, 616 (Wyo. 2005).  An abuse 
of discretion occurs when the trial court "acts in a manner [that] exceeds the 
bounds of reason under the circumstances."  
Id.

 
 
DISCUSSION

 
 
Whether 
the district court erred in instructing the jury that violation of a building 
code could be considered as evidence of negligence, rather than that such a 
violation was negligence per se?

 
 
[¶8]      Neither the term 
"negligence per se" nor the term 
"evidence of negligence" correctly describes the alternatives available to a 
trial court that has been asked to instruct a jury as to the legal effect of the 
breach of a statute, ordinance, or administrative agency rule in a negligence 
action.  Negligence, as we have said 
many times, consists of duty, breach, proximate cause, and resultant harm.  More precisely:

 
 
            
There are four elements to a negligence cause of action:  (1) the defendant owed the plaintiff a 
duty to conform to a specified standard of care; (2) the defendant breached the 
duty of care; (3) the defendant's breach of the duty of care proximately caused 
injury to the plaintiff; and (4) the injury sustained by the plaintiff is 
compensable by money damages.

 
 

Downtown 
Auto Parts, Inc. v. Toner, 2004 WY 
67, ¶ 8, 91 P.3d 917, 919 (Wyo. 2004).

 
 
[¶9]      Saying that the 
judge's choice is between "negligence per 
se" and "evidence of negligence" is linguistically misleading mainly because 
the former phrase suggests that it captures all four elements of the tort.  It does not.  What a judge is really being asked to do 
in such situations is to decide whether to declare the legislative or 
administrative enactment to be the minimum standard of care as a matter of 
law.  Landsiedel, 2005 WY 61, ¶ 22, 112 P.3d  
at 616.  In other words, if the 
enactment establishes the standard of care, its breach establishes the first two 
elements of the cause of action.  
If, however, the trial judge declines to equate the enactment with the 
duty of reasonable care, then breach of the enactment only becomes evidence that 
reasonable care was not exercised.

 
 
[¶10]   We have been dealing with this 
issue for a long time.  In Bagley v. Watson, 478 P.2d 595, 596-97 
(Wyo. 1971), 
we were asked to consider the propriety of three instructions that had been 
offered in the alternative in a highway-collision case.  The first instruction stated that 
violation of a municipal speeding ordinance "is negligence."  The second instruction described such a 
violation as creating a rebuttable presumption of negligence.  The third instruction told the jury it 
could consider the violation as evidence of negligence.  While admitting that a review of our 
case law revealed that the matter needed clarification, we sidestepped the 
question on procedural grounds.  
Id. at 597.  However, in a concurring opinion in Combined Ins. Co. v. Sinclair, 584 P.2d 1034, 1052-53 (Wyo. 1978), Justice McClintock opined that the law of Wyoming was 
consistent with the second view; that is, that violation of a statute, 
ordinance, or administrative regulation creates a rebuttable presumption of 
negligence.

 
 
[¶11]   The seminal case in our resolution 
of this issue came three years later.  
In Distad v. Cubin, 633 P.2d 167, 171-72 (Wyo. 1981), we began our discussion by 
describing the process by which a court determines the standard of care that is 
the first element of the tort of negligence:

 
 
            
This court has said rather recently that the duty of care is a question 
of law to be determined by the court.  
Medlock v. Van Wagner, Wyo., 625 P.2d 207 (1981).  It is a standard-fixing function which 
the judiciary must perform in order to give the jury a direction to decide 
whether a defendant's conduct in a particular case is justifiable or should be 
condemned and that if the conduct is found to be at variance with the standard, 
money is to be taken from the defendant to repair the plaintiff's damage.  What are the means by which a court 
determines a standard of conduct?  
The Restatement, Torts 2d, § 285 summarizes the 
methodology:

 
 
"The 
standard of conduct of a reasonable man may be

 
 
"(a) 
established by a legislative enactment or administrative regulation which so 
provides, or

 
 
"(b) 
adopted by the court from a legislative enactment or an administrative 
regulation which does not so provide, or

 
 
"(c) 
established by judicial decision, or

 
 
"(d) 
applied to the facts of the case by the trial judge or the jury, if there is no 
such enactment, regulation, or decision."

 
 
            
In the issue we are about to discuss and dispatch, we are concerned with 
standards of care borrowed from legislative enactments or administrative rules 
derived from statutory authority.  
It is seldom that the legislature provides specifically a standard of 
conduct which if violated shall entail civil liability in tort, as set out in § 
285(a) of the Restatement, supra.  
We find our cause for concern in the case before us with relation to our 
standard-making function in § 285(a), supra, described in paragraph (c) of the 
Restatement's comments in that regard:

 
 
"c.  Standard adopted from legislation.  Even where a legislative enactment 
contains no express provision that its violation shall result in tort liability, 
and no implication to that effect, the court may, and in certain types of cases 
customarily will, adopt the requirements of the enactment as the standard of 
conduct necessary to avoid liability for negligence.  The same is true of municipal ordinances 
and administrative regulations.  See 
§ 286 and Comments."

 
 
Just how 
to deal with statutes, ordinances and administrative regulations as standards of 
duty appears to be unsettled in this jurisdiction.

 
 
            
Appellant asserts that the jury was improperly instructed that the 
failure of a party to  comply with a 
state or federal regulation is evidence of negligence.  He contends that the jury should have 
been told that such a failure constitutes negligence per se, i.e., negligence in 
itself.

 
 
(Footnote 
omitted.)

 
 
[¶12]   We went on in Distad, 633 P.2d  at 173-74, to describe 
this Court's somewhat inconsistent approach to the concept of "statutory 
negligence per se," and concluded 
that the issue had never been met and decided "head on."  Id. at 174.  We then concluded that the effect of the 
violation of a statute, ordinance, or administrative regulation should be 
decided under the Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 286, 287, 288, 288A, 288B, 
and 288C.  Id. at 175-76.  Because they are central to this 
discussion, we will set out in full the relevant Restatement sections discussed 
in Distad:

 
 
Section 
286:

 
 
"The 
court may adopt as the standard of conduct 
of a reasonable man the requirements of a legislative enactment or an 
administrative regulation whose purpose is found to be exclusively or in 
part

 
 
"(a) to 
protect a class of persons which includes the one whose interest is invaded, 
and

 
 
"(b) to 
protect the particular interest which is invaded, and

 
 
"(c) to 
protect that interest against the kind of harm which has resulted, 
and

 
 
"(d) to 
protect that interest against the particular hazard from which the harm 
results."

 
 
Section 
288A:

 
 
"(1) An 
excused violation of a legislative enactment or an administrative regulation is 
not negligence.

 
 
"(2) 
Unless the enactment or regulation is construed not to permit such excuse, its 
violation is excused when

 
 
"(a) the 
violation is reasonable because of the actor's incapacity;

 
 
"(b) he 
neither knows nor should know of the occasion for 
compliance;

 
 
"(c) he 
is unable after reasonable diligence or care to comply;

 
 
"(d) he 
is confronted by an emergency not due to his own 
misconduct;

 
 
"(e) 
compliance would involve a greater risk of harm to the actor or to 
others."

 
 
Section 
288B:

 
 
"(1) The 
unexcused violation of a legislative enactment or an administrative regulation 
which is adopted by the court as defining the standard of conduct of a 
reasonable man, is negligence in itself.

 
 
"(2) The 
unexcused violation of an enactment or regulation which is not so adopted may be 
relevant evidence bearing on the issue of negligent 
conduct."

 
 

Id. at 
175-176.  (Emphasis 
added.)

 
 
[¶13]   We concluded our discussion of this 
issue in Distad by determining 
that:  (1) under the Restatement 
approach, the trial court's decision whether to adopt an enactment as the 
standard of care is discretionary; and (2) application of negligence per se is not always appropriate, 
especially "[w]hen the facts represent a conglomeration of circumstances . . . 
."  Id. 
at 176-179.

 
 
[¶14]   The principles of Distad have been applied many 
times.  In Dubus v. Dresser Indus., 649 P.2d 198, 
202-03 (Wyo. 1982), we held that the plaintiff did not fall within the class of 
persons contemplated for protection by a traffic statute, and that, therefore, 
the statute did not create a standard of care for the breach of which he could 
complain.  The following year, in McClellan v. Tottenhoff, 666 P.2d 408, 
412-13 (Wyo. 1983), superseded by 
statute, 1985 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 205, §1, as recognized in Daniels v. Carpenter, 
2003 WY 11, 62 P.3d 555 (Wyo. 2003), we held that two statutes regulating the 
sale of alcoholic beverages were intended for the protection of the general 
public, and that evidence of their violation constituted only evidence of 
negligence, rather than negligence per 
se.

 
 
[¶15]   We further refined the Distad principles in Short v. Spring Creek Ranch, 731 P.2d 1195 (Wyo. 1987), where the specific issue was "the refusal of the trial court 
to instruct the jury that violation of a statute regulating traffic constitutes 
negligence per se, and . . . that an 
instruction that such a violation is evidence of negligence is improper."  Id. at 1196.  After reiterating that Distad, rather than mandating a 
negligence per se approach, left the 
decision to the discretion of the trial judge as to what effect to give a 
statute or other enactment in regard to the standard of care in a civil action, 
we more fully described the benefits of an evidence of negligence 
standard:

 
 
            
What this court said in Distad v. 
Cubin, supra, is consistent with a choice which is compelled in any given 
case by the policy tension that exists between the so-called negligence per se 
and the so-called evidence of negligence rules.  The thrust of the negligence per se rule 
is that a legislative or administrative rule fixes a standard for all members of 
the community which does not require a specific interpretation by the jury, and 
thus certainty is promoted.  The 
advantages of the evidence of negligence rule are perceived to be that not all 
statutes and rules are appropriate, and some are obsolete; it may be unrealistic 
to conclude that all reasonable people will blindly obey all statutes or 
administrative rules in all circumstances; and the law should not prevent the 
jury from assuming its usual and historic function of determining whether, in 
the light of their common experiences, the person charged with negligence failed 
to act as a reasonable person would act.  
See F. Harper, F. James and O. Gray, The Law of Torts, § 17.6 (2d ed. 
1986).  These conflicting policy 
arguments prompted Professor Morris to say:

 
 
"Often, 
after the duty problem is settled, a criminal proscription operates as a 
desirable, more exact standard that smooths up civil procedure.  Nevertheless there are many situations 
in which substitution of the criminal proscription for the 
reasonably-prudent-man criterion effects substantive changeeither because the 
particular case entails special facts or because the judgment of the legislature 
is misguided.  Then use of the 
proscription will warp the policy of basing liability on fault. * * *"  The Role of Criminal Statutes in 
Negligence Actions, 49 Columbia L.Rev. 21 at 47 
(1949).

 
 
            
Courts should refrain from an inflexible application of the negligence 
per se rule because of the impact that may have upon the traditional policy of 
premising liability on fault.

 
 

Short, 
731 P.2d  
at 1198.  Finally, we said that a 
statutory standard should not be substituted for the duty of reasonable care "if 
the statute is somewhat obscure or unknown to the general public."  Id. at 1199.  See also Clarke v. Vandermeer, 740 P.2d 921, 926 (Wyo. 1987) (not error to refuse to give instruction on statute 
prohibiting drinking and driving where other instructions told jury to consider 
intoxication in determining evidence); Pickle v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 764 P.2d 262, 266 (Wyo. 1988) (violation of a subdivision statute may be evidence of 
negligence); and Pullman v. Outzen, 
924 P.2d 416, 418 (Wyo. 1996) (unexcused violation of legislative enactment 
not adopted as standard of care may be evidence of negligence, but does not 
constitute negligence per 
se).

 
 
[¶16]   In our most recent foray into this 
area of law, we relied heavily upon Short, supra, in concluding that a 
district court had not abused its discretion in choosing not to adopt the UBC or 
industry standards as the standard of care in a negligence action.  Landsiedel, 2005 WY 61, ¶¶ 22-25, 112 P.3d  at 616-17.1  Of particular relevance to the present 
case is our emphasis in Landsiedel, 
in evaluating that exercise of discretion, of the fact that the parties 
presented conflicting evidence as to what building code, if any, was applicable 
at the time of the incident.  
Id., ¶ 24, at 
617.

 
 
[¶17]   Application of the Restatement to 
the facts of this case does not convince us that the district court abused its 
discretion in determining not to adopt the UBC as the standard of care, and to 
instruct the jury, instead, that violation of a building code could be evidence 
of negligence, rather than being negligence per se.  Not only was there a dispute as to 
which UBC version was in effect, there was also evidence that, even if the 
latter version was in effect, the front landing provision would not have been 
well known to the public, and may or may not have been enforced against existing 
structures.  This is exactly the 
type of "conglomeration of facts" that we recognized in Distad as a sound basis for allowing the 
trial judge to exercise his discretion in the matter.  Distad, 633 P.2d  at 
176-79.

 
 
Whether 
the district court erred in permitting the jury to determine which of two 
versions of the UniformBuilding Code applied in this 
case?

 
 
[¶18]   While the question of the existence 
of a duty generally is a question of law for the court, there are instances 
where that question is dependent upon a determination of certain basic facts, in 
which case the question of the existence of a duty is a question of fact to be 
determined by the jury.  Pauley, 2004 WY 76, ¶ 11, 92 P.3d  at 
823.  In the instant case, several 
issues of fact required the jury, rather than the court, to determine whether 
the 1979 version or the 1997 version of the UBC, or neither of them, applied 
under the circumstances.  First, the 
home was built while the former code was in effect.  Second, city officials disagreed as to 
which code might have applied at the time of the injury.  And third, even if the latter code was 
in effect, evidence indicated that it applied to existing structures only if 
those structures had violations that were "dangerous to life," which is a 
question of fact.  The district 
court did not err in having the jury determine these factual 
issues.

 
 
CONCLUSION

 
 
[¶19]   The district court did not err in 
instructing the jury that evidence of a violation of the uniform building code 
could be considered as evidence of negligence, and it did not err in allowing 
the jury to decide issues of fact in determining whether the appellees owed a 
duty to the appellant.

 
 
[¶20]   Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

 
 

1A similar 
line of cases analyze this standard-of-care issue in the context of a 
slip-and-fall on snow or ice.  In Pinnacle Bank v. Villa, 2004 WY 150, ¶¶ 
6-11, 100 P.3d 1287, 1289-91 (Wyo. 2004), we answered a certified question by 
concluding that the district court had not abused its discretion in adopting a 
municipal ordinance as establishing the applicable duty in regard to the removal 
of snow and ice from walkways.  See also Johnson v. Hawkins, 622 P.2d 941, 943 (Wyo. 1981); Kalman v. Western Union Tel. Co., 390 P.2d 724, 726-27 (Wyo. 1964); and Watts v. Holmes, 386 P.2d 718, 719 
(Wyo. 
1963).