Title: Bishop v. South
Citation: 642 So. 2d 442
Docket Number: 1921868
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: May 27, 1994

642 So. 2d 442 (1994)
Glenda Kay BISHOP
v.
Yvonne SOUTH.
1921868.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 27, 1994.
*443 C. Harry Green of Green, Wood, Howell &amp; Glenn, Hamilton, for appellant.
Yvonne South and Jerry F. Guyton of Vinson &amp; Guyton, Hamilton, for appellee.
ALMON, Justice.
The plaintiff, Glenda Kay Bishop, appeals from a summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Yvonne South. Sherri Raspberry was also a defendant, and the summary judgment was also in her favor, but Bishop does not appeal as to Raspberry. Bishop was injured when she fell while on South's premises. The issue is whether Bishop presented substantial evidence that South breached her duty to exercise ordinary and reasonable care in providing and maintaining a reasonably safe premises.
On February 1, 1992, Bishop visited The Carousel, a store owned by South and her daughter. Bishop and her three stepdaughters entered the building and shopped for a few moments. As Bishop exited, she fell down the three steps from the door to the sidewalk and broke her ankle.
South offered Bishop's deposition in support of her summary judgment motion, and Bishop offered portions of it in opposition to the motion. In her deposition Bishop testified as follows concerning her fall:
Bishop also presented the affidavit of Rudd Robison, a registered architect for the firm of Staub, Robison &amp; Williams, P.A. He stated that he had personally examined the premises where Bishop fell and that he had come to the following conclusions:
In support of their motion for summary judgment, the defendants argued that Bishop should have known of the danger because she had visited the premises twice before. They presented excerpts from Bishop's deposition, as well as excerpts from their own depositions and their own affidavits. In an affidavit, Sherri Raspberry, who owned another business in the same building, stated that "[t]here was nothing out of the ordinary about the design or dimensions of the threshold." In South's deposition, she stated that her nine-year-old daughter had witnessed Bishop's fall and had told her that Bishop "slipped on the sidewalk."
Bishop was a business invitee on South's premises at the time of her accident. Because she was a business invitee, South owed her a duty to exercise reasonable care in maintaining her premises in a reasonably safe condition. Mann v. Smith, 561 So. 2d 1112, 1113 (Ala.1990); Collier v. Necaise, 522 So. 2d 275 (Ala.1988); Quillen v. Quillen, 388 So. 2d 985, 989 (Ala.1980). However, `"an invitor will not be liable for injuries to an invitee resulting from a danger which was known to the invitee or should have been observed by the invitee in the exercise of reasonable care.'" Baldwin v. Gartman, 604 So. 2d 347, 350 (Ala.1992), quoting Quillen, 388 So. 2d  at 988.
Robison said in his affidavit that the entrance to the building violated applicable building codes and was "unreasonably dangerous." Viewing the evidence most favorably to Bishop, we conclude that she presented substantial evidence that the entrance to South's building was not maintained in a reasonably safe condition and that this unsafe condition caused Bishop's fall.
South argues that she did not breach any duty, because, she says, any danger was open and obvious, and she argues that, because Bishop had visited the premises before, she should have known of the danger presented by the entrance. The facts of this case are strikingly similar to those of Mann v. Smith, supra, and Bogue v. R &amp; M Grocery, 553 So. 2d 545 (Ala.1989). On the authority of those cases, we hold that the plaintiff presented a genuine issue of material fact on the question whether any danger presented by the entrance was open and obvious. Therefore, South was not entitled to a summary judgment on this basis.
Bishop produced substantial evidence that the entrance of South's building was not maintained in a reasonably safe condition and that Bishop's fall was caused by a failure so to maintain the premises. The judgment is therefore reversed and the cause is remanded.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and HOUSTON, KENNEDY and COOK, JJ., concur.