Title: FLORES v. SIMMONS

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

FLORES v. SIMMONS2000 WY 55999 P.2d 1310Case Number: 98-357Decided: 03/23/2000Supreme Court of Wyoming
 
INEZ M. FLORES, Appellant 
(Plaintiff), v.JOHN W. SIMMONS, ROSE M. SIMMONS, J. MARK SIMMONS, AND 
MARILYN SIMMONS, in their individual capacities, and as Trustors, Trustees, 
and/or Beneficiaries of PIONEER MOBILE PARK TRUST AND JOHN AND MARK SIMMONS 
TRUST, d/b/a PIONEER ESTATES AND EASTRIDGE RENTAL PROPERTIES, Appellees 
(Defendants).

Appeal from the District 
Court of Goshen County, Honorable Keith G. Kautz, 
Judge.

Lowell H. Fitch 
of Fitch Law Offices, Torrington, Wyoming, Representing 
Appellant.Rebecca A. Lewis of Lewis & Hunt, LLC, Laramie, Wyoming, 
Representing Appellees.

Before 
LEHMAN, C.J., and THOMAS, MACY, GOLDEN & HILL, JJ.

LEHMAN, Chief 
Justice.

[¶1] Inez Flores 
(Flores) helped her daughter and son-in-law move into a trailer rented from the 
appellees. As Flores was leaving the trailer, part of the top outside step of 
the stairway collapsed, causing her to fall. Flores filed suit against the 
owners of the mobile home park, claiming they were negligent in maintaining the 
stairway. The district court granted summary judgment to the appellees, finding 
the landlord could not be held liable for injuries caused by an unknown latent 
defect on the rented premises. We affirm.

ISSUES

[¶2] Flores 
presents two issues for consideration:

I: Is there some reason 
in law and policy a Wyoming mobile home park operator may ever insist he is 
under no legal obligation to exercise reasonable care to prevent foreseeable 
harm to a lawful and ordinary user of a stairway serving his unit for rent and 
the served unit is occupied by a renter?

II: Does this case 
present with a genuine and material jury question precluding summary judgment in 
favor of a mobile home park operator, concerning an alleged-disputed 
unreasonably dangerous and discoverable defect, over the disputed issue whether 
the defect was materially "latent" or "patent," but in any event caused a sudden 
failure of a mobile home park stairway and personal injury to an ordinary user, 
the existence of which defect there is alleged and disputed the park operator 
should have known and did not make known to, or otherwise reasonably protect the 
injured person at risk?

[¶3] The 
appellees rephrase the issues as follows:

I. Did the trial court 
err in granting summary judgment to Appellees and determining that Appellees 
owed no duty to Appellant because:

A. Appellees were 
landlords,

B. The allegedly 
defective stairs were not "common area" or under Appellees['] control, 
and

C. Appellees had no 
reason to know of any latent defect in the stairs?

II. Did the exculpatory 
clause in the lease preclude liability by Appellees such that summary judgment 
is appropriate[?]

FACTS

[¶4] On June 20, 
1995, Flores' daughter and son-in-law moved into a rented trailer located in a 
mobile home park in Torrington owned by the appellees. Flores accompanied her 
husband when he brought the last load of the couple's belongings to the trailer. 
At about 5:30 p.m., Flores followed her husband as he went out of the trailer 
and down the outside steps. Although her husband proceeded down the steps 
without incident, part of the top step split off when Flores stepped down, 
causing her to grab on to the railing as she fell. This effort damaged her right 
shoulder. Flores filed suit, alleging that her injuries were caused by the 
appellees' negligence.

[¶5] On August 
24, 1998, the appellees filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, claiming that 
Flores had failed to assert a duty which was breached by them and that the 
rental contract released them from liability. Flores responded by stating the 
duty existed because: (1) the appellees were not "landlords" entitled to the 
protection of the doctrine of caveat emptor (but rather were "innkeepers"); (2) 
there was a question of fact regarding whether the outside steps were part of 
the rented unit or remained in the control of the appellees or, in the 
alternative, whether the employment of a maintenance man, who was to inspect the 
steps for safety and make any repairs, created an affirmative duty to discover 
and repair a latent defect in the stairs or to warn Flores of the danger; and 
(3) a duty should be found under the factors presented in Mostert v. CBL & 
Assocs., 741 P.2d 1090 (Wyo. 1987). A hearing was held on October 6, 1998, and 
the district court issued a decision letter on November 3, 1998, granting 
summary judgment in favor of the appellees. Flores appeals to this 
Court.

STANDARD OF 
REVIEW

[¶6] Summary 
judgment is appropriate only when a review of the record, in the light most 
favorable to the nonmoving party, reveals no triable issues of material fact and 
judgment is warranted as a matter of law. Exxon Corp. v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 
Sublette County, 987 P.2d 158, 161 (Wyo. 1999); Gordon v. Spectrum, Inc., 981 P.2d 448, 491 (Wyo. 1999). After the movant establishes a prima facie case, the 
burden of proof shifts to the opposing party who must show a genuine issue of 
material fact or come forward with competent evidence of specific facts 
countering those facts presented by the movant. Gordon, 981 P.2d  at 491-92. 
Although summary judgment is not favored in negligence actions, it is 
appropriate when the plaintiff is unable to establish a duty on the part of the 
defendant. Krier v. Safeway Stores 46, Inc., 943 P.2d 405, 408 (Wyo. 
1997).

DISCUSSION

[¶7] The 
district court found that there were no material issues of fact as to whether 
the appellees were landlords rather than "innkeepers," as argued by Flores. The 
test which establishes the landlord and tenant relationship was correctly cited 
by the district court as follows:

The necessary elements of 
the relationship of landlord and tenant have been said to be: "[p]ermission or 
consent on the part of the landlord, subordination to the landlord's title and 
rights on the part of the tenant, a reversion in the landlord, an estate in the 
tenant, and the transfer of possession and control of the premises to the tenant 
under a contract either express or implied between the 
parties."

[¶8] Belle 
Fourche Pipeline Co. v. State, 766 P.2d 537, 543 (Wyo. 1988); see also Robert S. 
Schoshinski, American Law of Landlord and Tenant § 1:1 (1980 & Supp. 
2000).

[¶9] Flores' 
contention that the appellees were "innkeepers" is unsupported by pertinent 
authority; indeed, it flies in the face of the applicable authorities. See, 
e.g., Schoshinski, supra, at § 1:5; 43A C.J.S. Inns, Hotels, and Eating Places 
§§ 2 & 5 (1978). Flores also disputes the district court's conclusions on 
the basis that a "mobile home" is personal, not real, property and, therefore, 
cannot be the subject of a landlord and tenant relationship. To whatever extent 
a mobile home may be deemed personalty in other contexts, it is in the instant 
circumstances unquestionably a dwelling which may become the object of a 
landlord and tenant relationship. See Shepard's Mobile Homes and Mobile Home 
Parks §§ 2.2 & 4.11 (1975 & Supp. 1999) ("`They are generally placed 
permanently in parks; once in place, only about one in every hundred mobile 
homes is ever moved.'" Section 2.2 at 5 (Supp. 1999) (quoting Yee v. City of 
Escondido, California, 503 U.S. 519, 523, 112 S. Ct. 1522, 1526, 118 L. Ed. 2d 153 (1992))). Mobile homes are subject to a wide variety of landlord and tenant 
relationships. Moreover, the rental agreement itself used the terms "tenancy" 
and "tenant" on seventeen occasions. The district court's conclusion that "the 
rental agreement clearly contemplates the landlord and tenant relationship" is 
precisely correct, especially when viewed in the light most favorable to 
Flores.

[¶10] Flores 
contends the defect was "latent" and the landlord knew of the defect and did not 
inform the tenant, as he had a duty to do. The only evidence presented to the 
district court was that the landlord did not know of the latent defect, and 
there was no suggestion in the evidentiary material presented to the district 
court that the appellees should have known of the defect. Our law is clear that 
a landlord may not be held liable for injuries sustained by tenants or their 
guests for latent defects unless such defects were known to the landlord or 
should have been known by the landlord. Medlock v. Van Wagner, 625 P.2d 207, 
208-09 (Wyo. 1981). Flores presses the limits of arguing in the alternative by 
suggesting that, if the defect was not latent, it was patent. Of course, that 
argument is self-defeating because a tenant is required to take suitable 
precautions in the face of a patent defect. Ortega v. Flaim, 902 P.2d 199, 204 
(Wyo. 1995). In addition, we note that one of the provisions of the rental 
agreement was: "The Tenant states that they have personally checked the premises 
and accept them in their present condition and deem rental home to be safe." 
Once again, the only evidence before the trial court from both Flores and the 
appellees was that the faulty step was not patently obvious.1 The trial court correctly 
determined there was no genuine issue of fact about this.

[¶11] Flores 
also contends that the faulty steps which were, for all intents and purposes, 
"attached" to the mobile home and were used only by the tenants and their guests 
for the purpose of entering the door to the home, were a "common area" over 
which the landlord maintained control and, therefore, the appellees owed a 
special duty. See Lyden v. Winer, 878 P.2d 516, 518-20 (Wyo. 1994). There are 
absolutely no evidentiary materials in the record to support this contention. 
The district court's decision in this regard is sound.

[¶12] We make 
one final observation with regard to Flores' contentions. In important part, she 
grounds her "theory" in this appeal on Mostert, 741 P.2d 1090. That case 
involved the tragic death of Mostert's daughter when the vehicle in which she 
was riding was engulfed by flood waters after she left a Cheyenne movie theater 
without being warned by the theater that the National Weather Service, civil 
defense authorities, and local law enforcement officials had issued severe 
thunderstorm, flash flood, and tornado warnings for the Cheyenne area. 741 P.2d  
at 1091. Flores' attempts to equate the circumstances of that case with this 
one, or to make an analogous argument from it, are, at best, 
baffling.

[¶13] The 
appellees ask us to consider the exculpatory clause language in the lease as a 
second ground for affirming the district court. The district court declined to 
apply that provision of the contract, and there appears to be good reason for 
that. In any event, analysis of that issue is unnecessary to our disposition of 
this case, and we decline to address it.

[¶14] The 
summary judgment of the district court is affirmed in all 
respects.

Footnotes

1 On July 1, 1999, 
statutes governing residential rental property became effective. Those statutes 
set out the duties of owners and renters and could, perhaps, alter the existing 
law which governs the landlord and tenant relationship. Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 
1-21-1201 to -1211 (LEXIS 1999).