Title: Sarkisian v. Concept Restaurants, Inc.

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 
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SJC-11786  
 
 
 
 
ANGELA SARKISIAN  vs.  CONCEPT RESTAURANTS, INC.1 
 
 
 
Worcester.      March 5, 2015. - June 23, 2015. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Spina, Cordy, Botsford, Duffly, Lenk, 
& Hines, JJ. 
 
 
 
Negligence, One owning or controlling real estate.  Notice.  
Practice, Civil, Summary judgment. 
 
 
 
 
Civil action commenced in the Worcester Division of the 
District Court Department on July 6, 2010.  
 
 
The case was heard on a motion for summary judgment by 
Steven E. Thomas, J. 
 
 
After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial 
Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review.  
 
 
 
Karen L. Stern for the plaintiff. 
 
Richard L. Neumeier for the defendant. 
 
Charlotte E. Glinka, Michael C. Najjar, & Thomas R. Murphy, 
for Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, amicus curiae, 
submitted a brief. 
 
John F. Brosnan, for Massachusetts Defense Lawyers 
Association, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. 
 
 
 
                                                          
 
 
1 Doing business as the Liquor Store. 
2 
 
 
CORDY, J.  In this case we decide whether the "mode of 
operation" approach to premises liability, adopted by this court 
in Sheehan v. Roche Bros. Supermkts., Inc., 448 Mass. 780, 788 
(2007), applies to slip-and-fall incidents occurring outside of 
the context of self-service establishments.  Traditionally, a 
plaintiff asserting premises liability has been required to show 
that the owner of the premises had actual or constructive notice 
of an unsafe condition that gave rise to an injury for which 
compensation is sought.  See id. at 782-783.  Under the mode of 
operation approach, however, the plaintiff satisfies the notice 
requirement by showing that the injury was attributable to a 
reasonably foreseeable unsafe condition related to the owner's 
chosen mode of operation.  See id. at 786. 
 
The plaintiff, Angela Sarkisian, broke her leg after 
slipping and falling on a wet dance floor at a nightclub owned 
by the defendant, Concept Restaurants, Inc.  A judge in the 
District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the 
defendant based on the plaintiff's inability to show that the 
defendant had actual or constructive notice of the unsafe 
condition that caused her injury.  We conclude that, on the 
facts presented by this case, the mode of operation approach 
3 
 
applies and summary judgment granted to the defendant must be 
reversed.2 
 
1.  Background.  We recite the material facts in the light 
most favorable to the plaintiff, the party who opposed the 
motion for summary judgment.  Augat, Inc. v. Liberty Mut. Ins. 
Co., 410 Mass. 117, 120 (1991).  The defendant operated a 
nightclub in Boston.  The nightclub was licensed to hold 574 
patrons and had a wooden dance floor measuring approximately 
fifty feet in length.  On the dance floor itself sat two bars -- 
one fifty-feet long and the other fifteen-feet long -- from 
which patrons could purchase alcoholic and nonalcoholic 
beverages served in plastic cups.  Patrons were permitted to 
consume their beverages on the dance floor or, alternatively, in 
a lounge area, which was accessible by a set of stairs at the 
rear of the dance floor.   
 
On August 22, 2009, at around 9:45 P.M., the plaintiff 
arrived at the nightclub with a group of friends.  A disc jockey 
was playing music, and the dance floor was crowded with dancing 
patrons, many of whom held drinks as they danced.  The 
nightclub's dim lighting was accented by strobe lights that 
flashed on the dancing patrons.  The nightclub was staffed with 
eight security guards, three barbacks, and a manager, each of 
                                                          
 
 
2 We acknowledge the amicus briefs submitted by the 
Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys and the Massachusetts 
Defense Lawyers Association.  
4 
 
whom was generally responsible for ensuring that the dance floor 
remained free of debris, notwithstanding the absence of any 
written policies to that effect.   
 
The plaintiff and her friends danced for several hours 
without noticing any spilled liquids on the dance floor.  At 
around 1:30 A.M., the plaintiff traveled up the stairs to the 
lounge area in search of a friend.  Unable to locate her friend, 
she traveled back down the stairs less than one minute later.  
On returning to the dance floor, she stepped onto a wet surface, 
slipped, and fell.  As a result of the fall, the plaintiff 
suffered two fractures to her right fibula and severe bruising. 
 
The plaintiff filed a complaint in the District Court, 
seeking damages arising from the defendant's negligence.  The 
defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plaintiff 
failed to show that the defendant had actual or constructive 
notice of the dangerous condition and, thus, failed as a matter 
of law to carry her burden under the "traditional" approach to 
premises liability.  The judge allowed the motion.  The 
plaintiff appealed on the ground that the "mode of operation" 
approach to premises liability -- which alleviates the 
plaintiff's burden of proving notice -- supplied the proper 
legal standard.  Panels of the Appellate Division of the 
5 
 
District Court and the Appeals Court affirmed.  We granted the 
plaintiff's application for further appellate review.3 
 
2.  Discussion.  a.  Standard of review.  Summary judgment 
is appropriate where there are no genuine issues of material 
fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of 
law.  See Kourouvacilis v. General Motors Corp., 410 Mass. 706, 
716 (1991); Mass. R. Civ. P. 56 (c), as amended, 436 Mass. 1404 
(2002).  "A nonmoving party's failure to establish an essential 
element of her claim 'renders all other facts immaterial' and 
mandates summary judgment in favor of the moving party."  Roman 
v. Trustees of Tufts College, 461 Mass. 707, 711 (2012), quoting 
Kourouvacilis, supra at 711. 
 
b.  Scope of mode of operation approach.  As a general 
rule, Massachusetts has adhered to the traditional approach to 
premises liability.  That approach, as set forth in the 
                                                          
 
 
3 Notwithstanding the allowance of the defendant's motion 
for summary judgment, a separate order of judgment in favor of 
the defendant was never specifically entered on the District 
Court docket.  See Mass. R. Civ. P. 58 (a), as amended, 371 
Mass. 908 (1977) ("Every judgment shall be set forth on a 
separate document . . ."); Mass. R. A. P. 4 (a), as amended, 464 
Mass. 1601 (2013) ("notice of appeal . . . shall be filed with 
the clerk of the lower court within thirty days of the date of 
the entry of the judgment . . .").  Nonetheless, the parties, 
Appellate Division of the District Court, and Appeals Court 
treated the allowance of the defendant's motion as the judgment.  
Finding no prejudice to either of the parties in the premature 
filing of the notice of appeal, we treat the appeal as if 
judgment had entered.  See Ramaseshu v. Board of Registration in 
Med., 441 Mass. 1006, 1006 n.1 (2004); Swampscott Educ. Ass'n v. 
Swampscott, 391 Mass. 864, 865–866 (1984). 
 
6 
 
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343 (1965), provides that "[a] 
possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm 
caused to his invitees by a condition on the land if, but only 
if, he (a) knows or by the exercise of reasonable care would 
discover the condition, and should realize that it involves an 
unreasonable risk of harm to such invitees, and (b) should 
expect that they will not discover or realize the danger, or 
will fail to protect themselves against it, and (c) fails to 
exercise reasonable care to protect them against the danger."  
Where the condition consists of spillage on the floor of a place 
of business, the first element is satisfied if the operator of 
that business "caused [the] substance, matter, or item to be on 
the floor; the . . . operator had actual knowledge of its 
presence; or the substance, matter, or item had been on the 
floor so long that the . . . operator should have been aware of 
the condition."  Sheehan, 448 Mass. at 782-783. 
In Sheehan, we acknowledged that there are circumstances in 
which strict application of the traditional approach's notice 
requirement will produce unjust results.  Id. at 788.  In that 
case, for example, the plaintiff slipped and fell on a grape in 
a grocery store.  The grapes were packaged in individual bags 
that were easily opened by hand and, thus, were susceptible to 
spillage by customers.  Id. at 781.  We noted that the evolution 
of grocery stores from clerk-assisted to self-service operations 
7 
 
created new risks to customers, "who generally may not be as 
careful and vigilant as a store owner because customers are not 
focused on the owner's concern of keeping items off the floor to 
avoid potential foreseeable risks of harm to other patrons."  
Id. at 784-785. 
Given that the notice inquiry in slip and fall cases is 
generally a factor of how long the dangerous substance has been 
on the floor, we concluded that it would be "'unjust to saddle 
the plaintiff with the burden of isolating the precise failure' 
that caused an injury, particularly where a plaintiff's injury 
results from a foreseeable risk of harm stemming from an owner's 
mode of operation."  Id. at 788, quoting Wollerman v. Grand 
Union Stores, Inc., 47 N.J. 426, 430 (1966).  Accordingly, we 
held that the notice requirement would be satisfied where "a 
plaintiff  proves that an unsafe condition on an owner's premises 
exists that was reasonably foreseeable, resulting from an 
owner's self-service business or mode of operation, and the 
plaintiff slips as a result of the unsafe condition."  Sheehan, 
448 Mass. at 791. 
Our adoption of the mode of operation approach in Sheehan 
did not supplant the general requirement that the plaintiff 
prove notice, nor did it modify in any way the remaining two 
elements of premises liability set forth in the Restatement 
(Second) of Torts § 343.  Sheehan, 448 Mass. at 792.  Rather, it 
8 
 
refined the Restatement's notice requirement in a narrow subset 
of premises liability cases.  The defendant argues that this 
narrow subset of cases is strictly confined to slip-and-fall 
incidents occurring in self-service establishments.  We 
disagree. 
The principles set forth in the Restatement (Second) of 
Torts are consistent with the application of the mode of 
operation approach outside of the context of self-service 
establishments.  The Restatement provides that a possessor of 
land who holds it open to the public for business purposes has a 
duty to exercise reasonable care to protect business visitors 
from harms caused by third parties, e.g., other business 
visitors.  Restatement (Second) of Torts § 344.  The comments 
observe that although a warning will often supply the necessary 
protection, there are "many situations in which the possessor 
cannot reasonably assume that a warning will be sufficient."  
Id. at § 344 comment d.  In such a situation, the landowner is 
"required to exercise reasonable care to use such means of 
protection as are available, or to provide such means in advance 
because of the likelihood that third persons . . . may conduct 
themselves in a manner which will endanger the safety of the 
visitor."  Id.  These comments reflect fundamental principles of 
tort liability that transcend the distinction between an errant 
grape in a supermarket aisle and a spilled beverage on a dance 
9 
 
floor.  See Sheehan, 448 Mass. at 788, quoting Restatement 
(Second) of Torts § 343 comment e ("one entering a store, 
theatre, office building, or hotel . . . is entitled to expect 
that his host will make far greater preparations to secure the 
safety of his patrons than a householder will make for his 
social or even his business visitors"). 
The defendant suggests that applying the mode of operation 
approach outside of the self-service context will result in a 
regime of strict liability.  We again disagree.  The law demands 
reasonable care, not perfection.  See Restatement (Second) of 
Torts §§ 343, 344.  See also Sheehan, 448 Mass. at 790 
("Adoption of [the mode of operation] approach would not hold 
owners strictly liable to all plaintiffs involved in slip-and-
fall incidents on their premises").  Irrespective of the 
particular mode of operation involved, the plaintiff bears the 
burden of establishing that the defendant failed to exercise 
reasonable care in protecting its patrons from the unsafe 
conditions facilitated by its mode of operation.4  See id. at 
790-791. 
                                                          
 
 
4 In the case of a nightclub operating with bars on the 
dance floor and permitting patrons to dance with their drinks, 
such reasonable care might include the employment of sufficient 
staff charged with monitoring and cleaning up spilled liquid on 
the dance floor at sufficient intervals, or the use of beverage 
containers on the dance floor that are less likely to spill 
liquid when jostled.  See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 344 
comment f (1965). 
10 
 
Nonetheless, it is true that "nearly every business 
enterprise produces some risk of customer interference," and, in 
the absence of limiting principles, "[a] plaintiff could get to 
the jury in most cases simply by presenting proof that a store's 
customer could have conceivably produced the hazardous 
condition."  Chiara v. Fry's Food Stores of Ariz., Inc., 152 
Ariz. 398, 400-401 (1987).  In view of these concerns, the court 
in Sheehan limited the mode of operation approach to situations 
where a business should reasonably anticipate that its chosen 
method of operation will regularly invite third-party 
interference resulting in the creation of unsafe conditions, and 
a visitor suffers an injury after encountering the condition so 
created.  Sheehan, 448 Mass at 791.  The court in Sheehan did 
not, however, limit this modern refinement of the notice 
requirement to unsafe conditions arising from self-service 
operations.  See generally id. at 785-786, 791, citing Jackson 
v. K-Mart Corp., 251 Kan. 700, 701, 710-711 (1992) (spilled 
juice purchased from in-store cafeteria).  See also Gump v. Wal-
Mart Stores, Inc., 93 Haw. 417, 419-421 (2000) (fallen french 
fry purchased from in-store fast-food restaurant); McDonald v. 
Safeway Stores, Inc., 109 Idaho 305, 307-308 (1985) (melted ice 
cream dispensed by employees).  As was aptly observed in Konesky 
v. Post Road Entertainment, 144 Conn. App. 128, 140-141 (2013), 
a case on which the defendant relies, self-service is one 
11 
 
"situation in which the proprietor's 'operating methods' enhance 
the risk of recurring dangerous conditions brought about by 
third party interference . . . but it logically is not the only 
business method that can have such an effect."  Accordingly, we 
now state explicitly what was implicit in Sheehan, namely, that 
so long as the aforementioned parameters for applying the mode 
of operation approach exist, there is no basis for limiting its 
application to self-service establishments.5 
c.  Defendant's mode of operation.  Alternatively, the 
defendant argues that even if the mode of operation approach 
could be applied outside of the self-service context, it should 
be further narrowed to exclude situations where a nightclub's 
only feasible method of operation is to serve drinks to patrons 
who are free to move about the premises.  In support of this 
position, the defendant attempts to analogize this case to 
Konesky, 144 Conn. App. at 141-142, a case involving a nightclub 
that served cans and bottles of beer to patrons from large 
plastic tubs filled with ice.  Id. at 130-131.  The plaintiff in 
that case slipped and fell on a puddle located near one of the 
"beer tubs" and sustained injuries.  Id. at 131.  She filed a 
                                                          
 
 
5 The defendant asserts that this so-called "extension" of 
the mode of operation approach constitutes a new rule that may 
only be applied prospectively.  For the reasons stated in 
Sheehan v. Roche Bros. Supermkts., Inc., 448 Mass. 780, 791 n.9 
(2007), we reject this assertion. 
 
12 
 
negligence action against the nightclub, arguing that the 
nightclub's use of the beer tubs created an inherent risk of 
recurring danger meriting the application of the mode of 
operation approach.  Id. at 131-132.  The court disagreed, 
concluding instead that the traditional approach was 
appropriate.  Id. at 143-144. 
The analogy to Konesky fails because the slippery condition 
in that case arose not from third-party interference, but from 
the employees' failure to wipe off the dripping wet cans and 
bottles before handing them to patrons.  Id. at 141 & n.11.  As 
the court explained, the mode of operation approach is 
superfluous where the defendant, rather than a third party, 
affirmatively causes the unsafe condition.  Id.  See Sheehan, 
448 Mass. at 782-783, 786 (under traditional approach, plaintiff 
must prove either that owner caused unsafe condition or had 
notice of it; under mode of operation approach, foreseeability 
of condition satisfies notice requirement).  Although the 
plaintiff in the Konesky case also argued that patrons 
exacerbated the unsafe condition by carrying the dripping 
beverages around the premises, the court cogently observed that 
the same is true any time "a patron orders a bottle of beer at a 
bar, a nightclub, or a wedding reception."  Konesky, 144 Conn. 
App. at 142.  We agree with the Konesky court that an 
establishment "does not create liability under the mode of 
13 
 
operation doctrine simply by serving chilled beer."  Id. at 143.  
Importantly, however, those are not the facts of this case. 
Here, the nightclub's mode of operation included the sale 
of beverages in plastic cups from bars located on a dance floor.  
The patrons were then permitted to dance while holding their 
beverages.  It was reasonably foreseeable that such a mode of 
operation would result in a recurring theme of cups being 
jostled and liquid being jettisoned by patrons onto the dance 
floor.  Where that liquid is spilled on a floor, crowded with 
dancers, in a dimly lit setting with flashing strobe lights, and 
the only route of travel to and from the lounge area is across 
that dance floor, common sense tells us that the spill creates 
an unsafe condition that a patron such as the plaintiff is ill-
suited to discern, except, perhaps, by the happenstance of a 
slip and fall. 
Although the general risk of an unsafe condition occurring 
might be equally obvious to both owner and patron, under these 
circumstances, the owner is in a far better position to identify 
and investigate the source of the condition once it has 
occurred.  Sheehan, 448 Mass. at 789.  Moreover, it is not 
reasonable for the owner to ignore a recurring risk of danger 
arising from its chosen mode of operation where it would be 
reasonable to expect that a patron who has entered the 
establishment for the purpose of dancing would choose to 
14 
 
encounter that risk rather than turn back.  See Restatement 
(Second) of Torts § 344 & comment d.  Cf. Papadopoulos v. Target 
Corp., 457 Mass. 368, 379 (2010) ("It is not reasonable for a 
property owner to leave snow or ice on a walkway where it is 
reasonable to expect that a hardy New England visitor would 
choose to risk crossing the snow or ice rather than turn back or 
attempt an equally or more perilous walk around").  Yet, in 
cases such as this, the owner has scarce incentive to act 
reasonably, because the injured patron will seldom be able to 
discern the origin of the unsafe condition and, thus, satisfy 
the notice requirement under the traditional approach to 
premises liability.  See Sheehan, 448 Mass. at 788 ("traditional 
approach requires plaintiffs to prove how long the substance 
creating the hazardous condition has been on the floor, thereby 
imposing an unfair burden on them to adduce evidence that is 
more readily accessible to defendants").  It is apparent, 
therefore, that the policies underlying the mode of operation 
approach apply with the same force here as they did in Sheehan.  
Fidelity to those policies demands that the mode of operation 
approach be applied in this case. 
At oral argument, the defendant warned of the parade of 
horribles that would follow such a result.  According to the 
defendant, courts will begin applying the mode of operation 
approach to any establishment in which patrons are permitted to 
15 
 
carry their own drinks, whether they are traveling, for example, 
from a bar to a table in a restaurant or from a concession stand 
to their seats at a sporting event.  We dispel any such notion.  
A plaintiff does not get to the jury simply by showing that an 
establishment sells drinks to patrons who are then allowed to 
travel about the premises.  See Konesky, 144 Conn. App. at 142. 
A plaintiff may get to the jury, however, by showing that 
patrons who wish to travel between the bar and their seats are 
forced -- as a recurring feature of the mode of operation -- to 
navigate in the dark through a crowd of dancing people holding 
plastic cups filled with liquid over a wooden floor.  Spillage 
is conceivable in either circumstance, but only in the latter is 
the regularity of such spillage tied to the mode of operation in 
a manner that justifies placing the business on notice of the 
resulting unsafe condition.  See Chiara, 152 Ariz. at 400-401. 
Finally, the defendant argues that the mode of operation 
approach is inappropriate on the facts of this particular case, 
because there is no evidence of regular spillage or of a causal 
nexus between such spillage and the plaintiff's injury.  These 
arguments are undercut considerably by the nightclub manager's 
deposition testimony that "spills on the dance floor are part of 
the business."  Considering the evidence in the light most 
favorable to the plaintiff, Augat, 410 Mass. at 120, the 
reasonable inference is that a spilled beverage produced the wet 
16 
 
surface on which the plaintiff slipped.  Cf. Leary v. Jordan 
Marsh Co., 322 Mass. 309, 310 (1948) ("There was no evidence of 
any wet spots upon the floor other than at the site of the 
accident, except near the entrance.  The absence of any evidence 
of wet spots between any of the entrances and the spots in 
question negatives any contention that these spots came from 
water tracked in the store and indeed leaves the rain as the 
source of these spots a matter of conjecture and surmise").  
Whether the defendant exercised reasonable care to protect 
patrons from such spillage is a question for the jury.  Sheehan, 
448 Mass. at 792. 
3.  Conclusion.  For the foregoing reasons, we conclude 
that summary judgment was improperly granted and that the 
defendant had notice of the inherent risks associated with its 
chosen mode of operating its dance floor.  We reverse the order 
granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant and remand 
the case to the District Court for further proceedings 
consistent with this opinion. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.