Opinion ID: 1859651
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Even if Hudson was a licensee, was she nevertheless owed a higher duty of care?

Text: ¶ 17. Hudson argues that even if she is a licensee, the duty owed to her by CMI is more than to just refrain from wilfully or wantonly injuring her, because she fits within the Hoffman exception. In Hoffman, this Court found that the exercise of ordinary reasonable care is required when the landowner is engaged in active conduct and the entrant's presence is known to the landowner. Hoffman, 358 So.2d at 1013. Hudson contends that CMI had a duty to warn her of any hidden danger or peril known to CMI. Further, she contends that since she was unable to appreciate the condition of the building before entering and CMI had neither posted warning signs nor placed any barricades or other devices to block access to the building, CMI breached the relevant standard of care. ¶ 18. In her response to interrogatories, however, Hudson stated that when she entered CMI's used car lot building, all the doors were standing wide open, and she realized that the roof had collapsed, dumping water and debris on the carpet. She talked with an unidentified man that she guessed was a salesman about it while she waited for Johnston, and she walked around inside the building because there were no chairs to sit on. She further stated the CMI had a card table, two chairs and a telephone outside the front door ... for their salesmen to use since they could not conduct business inside their building. ¶ 19. CMI's response to interrogatories, attached as an exhibit to its answer to Hudson's complaint, also reveals that CMI's business was not being conducted in the damaged building on the day of Hudson's fall and that no employees of CMI were on the premises at the used car lot building at the time of her fall. CMI contends that Hudson's presence was not known to it and that her injuries were not caused by affirmative conduct but simply by the condition of the premises. ¶ 20. For the Hoffman exception to apply, the landowner must (1) be aware of the plaintiffs presence and (2) engage in active negligence rather than passive negligence. Hoffman, 358 So.2d at 1011. Thus, the question to be answered is whether CMI was actively negligent in having its building open in spite of its water damage, or whether doing so was, at worst, passive negligence. ¶ 21. In Hoffman, we first applied this exception against a cotton gin which allowed non-employees to come into the vicinity of an augur used to funnel cotton seed onto a loading truck. Id. at 1010-11. The gin had also failed to post warning signs around the augur, even though the floor nearby was slippery, and the son of a gin employee slipped and fell into the augur, losing a foot in the process. Id. at 1010. Obviously, CMI was not active in the same sense as was the cotton gin in Hoffman. All the doors of the CMI building were standing open, there was wet carpet and debris, and there was a card table sitting outside with chairs and a telephone. No employees were on duty at the building. Hudson was clearly familiar with the property, having been there on numerous occasions, as her son was always there during working hours of CMI, buying used cars from them and telling them what they're worth. Even though there were no warning signs, she noticed the water and debris immediately upon entering the building, yet continued to walk around in it.