Case Title: Petersen v. Campbell County Memorial Hosp. Dist.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1988-09-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
Petersen v. Campbell County Memorial Hosp. Dist.1988 WY 109760 P.2d 992Case Number: 88-125Decided: 09/02/1988Supreme Court of Wyoming
DONNA PETERSEN, APPELLANT 
(PLAINTIFF),

v.

CAMPBELL COUNTY MEMORIAL 
HOSPITAL DISTRICT, A BODY CORPORATE, APPELLEE (DEFENDANT).

Appeal from the District 
Court, CampbellCounty, Timothy J. Judson, 
J.

Don M. Empfield, 
Gillette, for 
appellant.

W. Henry Combs, 
III, Murane & Bostwick, Casper, and Rex O. Arney, Redle, Yonkee & Arney, 
Sheridan, for 
appellee.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY 
and GOLDEN, JJ.

GOLDEN, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     Appellant Donna 
Petersen appeals from the disposition of her personal injury action on summary 
judgment. The action arose from her November 22, 1985, slip and fall on premises 
occupied by her treating physician, Dr. Timothy P. Hallinan, and owned by 
appellee Campbell County Memorial Hospital District of Gillette, Wyoming.1

[¶2.]     On appeal, Mrs. 
Petersen states three interrelated issues, but effectively argues only the 
third. She first raises the issue of the propriety of summary judgment on her 
negligence allegation concerning removal of a natural accumulation of ice and 
snow. Next, she claims the hospital district did not meet its summary judgment 
burden of proving the nonexistence of a genuine issue of material fact with 
respect to her negligence allegations concerning the hospital district's 
construction and maintenance of dangerous and unsafe steps; failure to provide 
roughened, skid-resistant covering or paint on the steps; and failure to provide 
adequate maintenance and repair of the steps. Last, she challenges summary 
judgment as to the hospital district's alleged failure to provide an adequate 
handrail for the steps.

[¶3.]     We affirm summary 
judgment on all negligence allegations except the hospital district's failure to 
provide an adequate handrail for the steps, as to which allegation we 
reverse.

[¶4.]     Mrs. Petersen arrived 
at Dr. Hallinan's office in Gillette, Wyoming, around 8:15 a.m. on November 22, 
1985. She arrived that day in her ninth month of pregnancy, weighing about 190 
pounds, standing a shade over five feet tall, and wearing traction soled tennis 
shoes. Upon leaving the doctor's office she slipped on a one-inch layer of 
naturally accumulated ice and snow covering the front steps. Describing her 
accident in her deposition, Mrs. Petersen testified that she was at the porch 
top of the three-step stairway, grasped the stairway handrail with her right 
hand, placed her right foot down on the first step while keeping her left foot 
on the porch top, and suddenly her feet went out from underneath her, causing 
her to fall on the top, flat part of the porch. As she fell, her "behind" struck 
the stairway surface and her left foot went underneath her. Then she slid down 
the steps landing at the bottom of the stairway with her left foot underneath 
her "behind."

[¶5.]     In her complaint, Mrs. 
Petersen alleged, and the hospital district in answer denied, that the hospital 
district was negligent in the construction and maintenance of the steps and 
because it failed to: 1) remove snow on the step; 2) provide roughened, 
skid-resistant covering or paint on the step; 3) provide adequate maintenance 
and repair of the steps; and 4) provide an adequate handrail for the 
steps.

[¶6.]     The parties conducted 
discovery, including the depositions of Mrs. Petersen and Dr. Hallinan. On 
February 29, 1988, the trial court granted summary judgment favoring the 
hospital district. The court based its decision on the finding that Mrs. 
Petersen was a business invitee who slipped and fell on a natural accumulation 
of snow which was readily apparent to her at the time of her accident. The trial 
court concluded that no genuine issues of material fact existed and the hospital 
district was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

[¶7.]     We review this summary 
judgment appeal under W.R.C.P. 56, in accordance with our well-established 
standard of review recently set out in Milligan v. Big Valley Corporation, 754 P.2d 1063, 1068 (Wyo. 1988). We need not recite that 
standard.

[¶8.]     The hospital district 
begins its argument by citing this court's holding in Sherman v. PlatteCounty, 642 P.2d 787, 789 (Wyo. 1982). That case is 
squarely on point and cancels any alleged hospital district liability for 
failure to remove naturally occurring accumulations of snow and 
ice.

[¶9.]     Concerning Mrs. 
Petersen's allegation it failed to provide roughened, skid-resistant covering or 
paint on the steps and this failure caused her slip and fall, the hospital 
district did not present any evidence to inform the court of what material the 
steps were made or whether the steps were covered with any roughened, 
skid-resistant material or substance. However, the hospital district did address 
this material fact by relying upon Mrs. Petersen's deposition testimony that she 
slipped on the steps because they 
were covered by a one-inch layer of ice and freshly fallen snow. By her own 
admission the proximate cause of her slip on the step was this one-inch layer of 
ice and snow. Mrs. Petersen's evidence plainly shows that it did not matter 
whether or not the step had a roughened, skid-resistant surface since, on the 
morning of her fall, its surface would have been covered by a one-inch layer of 
ice and freshly fallen snow and would not have been of use to prevent her foot 
from slipping. Reasonable minds cannot differ on that conclusion. Parker v. 
Haller, 751 P.2d 372, 375 (Wyo. 1988). Therefore, as a matter of law, the 
hospital district's alleged negligence in failing to provide a roughened, 
skid-resistant covering on the steps, if proved, could not be a proximate cause 
of Mrs. Petersen's slip and fall.

[¶10.]  Mrs. Petersen's negligence allegations 
concerning the hospital district's failure to construct safe steps and 
adequately to maintain and repair them fail on summary judgment for the same 
reason. The hospital district relied upon Dr. Hallinan's deposition testimony 
that the steps were painted sometime before her slip and fall, the handrail was 
not loose when she fell, no one had complained to him about the condition of the 
steps or slipped and fallen on them before she did, and that he was always 
satisfied with the hospital district's maintenance of the steps. Mrs. Petersen's 
summary judgment showing did not include any evidence tending to show the 
hospital district's unsafe construction or inadequate maintenance and repair of 
the steps; likewise, she did not offer evidence on this material fact tending to 
show that her slip was caused, in whole or in part, by any condition other than 
the one-inch layer of ice and snow. As we stated above, reasonable minds cannot 
differ concerning her slip and fall having been caused by the ice and snow, and 
not the alleged and unproven, unsafe construction or inadequate maintenance and 
repair of the steps. Summary judgment on those issues of negligence was also 
proper as a matter of law. Parker, 751 P.2d  at 375.

[¶11.]  With respect to Mrs. Petersen's 
allegation that the hospital district failed to provide an adequate handrail for 
the steps, the hospital district did not support its motion for summary judgment 
with any evidence refuting that allegation. Accordingly, Mrs. Petersen was 
entitled to rely upon her allegation and had no obligation to present any 
factual support for it. Her unrefuted allegation is sufficient to state a claim 
upon which relief can be granted. Therefore, the trial court inappropriately 
entered summary judgment against Mrs. Petersen on that 
allegation.

[¶12.]  Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and 
remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

URBIGKIT, J., filed an opinion 
concurring in part and dissenting in part.

FOOTNOTES

1 Dr. Hallinan was 
dismissed from this appeal on June 22, 1988.

URBIGKIT, Justice, concurring in 
part and dissenting in part.

[¶13.]  I concur in affirming the summary 
judgment dismissal of the claim of appellant, Ms. Petersen, on her negligence 
allegation involving snow removal as under the time constraints and 
circumstances shown by the affidavit evidence. I do not broaden the scope of 
decision to deny that such a duty cannot exist or may not be created when the 
property owner was presented an adequate opportunity to cure a demonstrably 
dangerous public egress condition.

[¶14.]  In this concurrence, there is agreement 
with reversal on the hand rail inquiry, but I would differ and consequently 
dissent in affirming dismissal of appellant's claims against the property owner 
that:

"b. It failed to provide 
roughened, skid-resistant covering or paint on the steps although it had a duty 
to do so; and

* * * * * 
*

"d. It failed to provide 
adequate maintenance and repair of the steps, although it had a duty to do 
so."

[¶15.]  Assuming the accuracy of the unrefuted 
allegations of the complaint of either improper construction or improper 
maintenance, there is to be found within the minimal record no sufficient 
evidence to sustain summary judgment that the fall was not, at least in part, a 
result proximately of the nature of the stairs as then effected by the 
inevitability in Wyoming of falling snow in the winter time. There is 
insufficient factual development for this summary judgment disposition to 
empirically determine, as a matter of law, that the construction and maintenance 
condition of the stairs did not constitute a causative factor in the patient's 
fall. One could not consider snow and ice to be an unexpected and totally 
unrelated intervening cause in Gillette, Wyoming during the winter time. Proximate 
cause is normally a jury question. England v. Simmons, Wyo., 
728 P.2d 1137 (1986), majority and dissent. See summary judgment standard, 
Cordova v. Gosar, Wyo., 719 P.2d 625 (1986) and O'Donnell v. City of Casper, Wyo., 696 P.2d 1278 
(1985).

[¶16.]  Consequently, I partially concur in 
disposition of two appeal issues, but respectfully dissent as to the affirmation 
of summary judgment for a claim which embraces improper construction and 
inadequate maintenance of a public building entrance.