Case Name: Shirley JOHNSON v. Wendall BOYDSTON, d/b/a Village Inn Motel, a Sole Proprietorship
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1992-03-25
Citations: 605 So. 2d 727
Docket Number: No. 07-CA-59630
Parties: Shirley JOHNSON v. Wendall BOYDSTON, d/b/a Village Inn Motel, a Sole Proprietorship.
Judges: Before ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., and BANKS and McRAE, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 605
Pages: 727–731

Head Matter:
Shirley JOHNSON v. Wendall BOYDSTON, d/b/a Village Inn Motel, a Sole Proprietorship.
No. 07-CA-59630.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
March 25, 1992.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 10, 1992.
David G. Hill, Craig Hill White & Min-yard, Oxford, John Paul Barber, Arlington, Va., for appellant.
Ronald L. Roberts, Mitchell McNutt Threadgill Smith & Sams, Columbus, for appellee.
Before ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., and BANKS and McRAE, JJ.

Opinion:
ROY NOBLE LEE, Chief Justice,
for the court:
This slip and fall case was filed by Shirley Johnson and Olen Johnson, her husband, in the Circuit Court of Winston County, Mississippi. The suit alleged personal injuries sustained by Shirley Johnson and loss of consortium on the part of Olen Johnson against Wendall Boydston d/b/a Village Inn Motel, a sole proprietorship. The lower court granted Boydston's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit. The Johnsons have filed an appeal to this Court and present the following issues for decision:
I. THE LOWER COURT ERRED BY REFUSING TO RECOGNIZE THAT THE VILLAGE INN IS LIABLE TO SHIRLEY JOHNSON FOR THE INJURIES SHE SUSTAINED AS A RESULT OF THE UNREASONABLY DANGEROUS CONDITION OF THE STAIRWAY.
II. THE VILLAGE INN BREACHED ITS DUTY TO USE ORDINARY CARE IN KEEPING ITS PREMISES IN A REASONABLY SAFE CONDITION.
III. SUMMARY JUDGMENT WAS NOT APPROPRIATE IN THIS CASE DUE TO THE EXISTENCE OF GENUINE ISSUES OF MATERIAL FACT.
FACTS
Shirley Johnson, aged 51 at the time, answered the call to report for jury duty in Winston County the week of March 30, 1987. The circuit court seated Johnson as a juror on a murder case, which required that the jury be sequestered for that entire week. Court officials arranged with Wendell Boydston, owner and operator of the Village Inn Motel in Louisville, for the jurors to be housed there for the duration of the trial. Jurors and the two court bailiffs occupied the entire front side of the second floor of the motel. In addition to the lodging provided, the Village Inn Motel provided the jurors with breakfast.
Winter lingered on later than usual in 1987, and, on Thursday, April 2, 1987, it began to snow in Louisville sometime during the afternoon, continuing into the night. As a result, eventually one to two inches of snow accumulated on the ground. The next morning, as the jurors prepared for another day in Court, Shirley Johnson noticed the accumulation of snow outside the motel. She told her female roommate that she was changing her shoes, since she expected conditions outside to be slippery. She told the other woman that she also should change her shoes. Mrs. Johnson went outside the motel room and met three other jurors, who were preparing to descend the stairs from their second-floor rooms. Although the walkway outside the rooms was covered by the roof, the stairway extended out from the roofed portion of the building and was not itself covered.
Johnson noticed that there was snow on the steps and that water was dripping from the roof onto the top steps. She told one of the other jurors, an elderly gentleman, to be careful going down the steps. She and another female juror then began going down the steps side by side. Although Johnson held onto the handrail as she began her descent, she slipped on the first or second step, lost her grip on the handrail and fell all of the way to the bottom of the stairway. Her knee was skinned and beginning to turn blue after the fall, she experienced discomfort in her back and legs throughout the rest of the trial, and she did not sleep well on the following night. Other jurors could see that she was in discomfort and heard her ask for pain medication. Although she was able to finish her jury service which ended the following day, she called her doctor that day, Saturday, April 3, 1987, since she was still experiencing pain in her back and legs. She later received treatment for injuries, which she described in her response to Boydston's motion for summary judgment as severe lumbosacral strain, contusion of the lower back and hematoma of the right lower leg.
Johnson filed the complaint to institute this suit on September 16, 1987, joined by her husband Olen Johnson's complaint for loss of consortium. Johnson sought $150,-000 in compensatory damages, her husband sought $75,000 in compensatory damages and they demanded a jury trial. The complaint alleged that the design of the building was faulty since it allowed water to drip directly on the steps, creating a more dangerous (icy) condition and further alleged that Boydston breached his duty to maintain safe premises by allowing the accumulated snow to remain on the steps, the only means of ingress and egress to and from the second-floor motel rooms.
LAW
I., II., AND III.
The issues in this case will be discussed together: (1) the lower court erred in refusing to hold the Village Inn liable because of the unreasonably dangerous condition of the stairway; (2) the appellee had a duty to use ordinary care in keeping the premises in a reasonably safe condition and; (3) summary judgment was not appropriate due to the existence of genuine issues of material fact.
The rule has long been recognized in this state that an owner or occupier of land owes his business invitees the duty to exercise reasonable care to keep the premises safe or warn the invitee of the dangerous premises, if the condition is not readily apparent to the invitee. Biloxi Regional Medical Center v. David, 555 So.2d 53, 56 (Miss.1989); Lucas v. Buddy Jones Ford Lincoln Mercury, Inc., 518 So.2d 646, 648 (Miss.1988); Stanley v. Morgan & Lindsey, Inc., 203 So.2d 473, 475 (Miss.1967) and a multitude of other cases state the principle. Also it is well recognized that "the owner or occupant is not the insurer of the premises." Jerry Lee's Grocery, Inc. v. Thompson, 528 So.2d 293, 295 (Miss.1988) (citing Kroger, Inc. v. Ware, 512 So.2d 1281 (Miss.1987); First National Bank of Vicksburg v. Cutrer, 214 So.2d 465 (Miss.1968); Daniels v. Morgan & Lindsey, Inc., 198 So.2d 579 (Miss.1967). However, the facts in the case at bar are different from the cases stating the aforementioned rules. Likewise, the facts in this case more strongly support a cause of action than those in Goodwin v. Derryberry Co., 553 So.2d 40 (Miss.1989), where this Court found that liability was a question for the jury.
In the case at bar, Mrs. Johnson was a juror in a murder case when the jury was sequestered for the night. The jurors were invitees and houseguests of the Inn. Snow fell during the night and jurors, being housed on the second floor of the Inn, had only one route for descending to the ground floor — by the uncovered, exposed stairs. The snow had covered the stairs and handrails, and water was running from the roof of the Inn, dripping onto the stairs and into the snow. The appellee knew his guests were housed on the second floor; he knew that they had to descend to the ground floor; and he knew, or should have known, that it had snowed and that water was running off the roof onto the stairs, either partially melting or partially freezing under the snow. The appellee had the duty to use reasonable care to provide a safe place and facility for his guests to descend from the second floor.
In Picard v. Waggoner, 204 Miss. 366, 37 So.2d 567 (Miss.1948), this Court addressed the duty of an innkeeper to provide safe ingress and egress for his guests. The Court stated:
It is, of course, the duty of the keeper of a lodging house where guests are received for hire to use reasonable care to provide the guest with reasonably safe means of ingress and egress, and when sufficient and suitable means have been designated and supplied for this purpose, the keeper is not under duty to any guest to maintain the entire premises in a safe condition but only such other parts as by invitation or customary use to the knowledge of the keeper the guest would be reasonably expected to go. 43 C.J.S., Innkeepers, § 22, page 1180, 28 Am.Jur. p. 579, and cases cited.
Id. at 567.
We are of the opinion that the lower court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the appellee and dismissing the complaint. Therefore, the judgment of the lower court is reversed and the cause is remanded for a full evidentiary trial on the merits.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
HAWKINS and DAN M. LEE, P.JJ., and PRATHER, ROBERTSON, SULLIVAN, PITTMAN, BANKS and McRAE, JJ., concur.
EN BANC