Opinion ID: 1841842
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Assumption of the Risk as a Defense to Wanton Conduct

Text: If Appellees are correct in their assertions that the premises owner/independent contractor standard of care is different from the rule set forth in Blount Brothers ( i.e., that assumption of the risk is no valid defense to wanton conduct), the judgment in this case is due to be affirmed. In the purest sense (and the Appellees recognize this), the exception alluded to in 41 Am.Jur.2d is not an exception to the rule that assumption of the risk is not a defense to wantonness; rather, it is an exception to the general rule governing the extent of [the owner's] duty to furnish an independent contractor and the latter's employees a safe place to work and to warn them of hidden dangers. While we do not quarrel with the statement in Am.Jur. of the general rule and the contract for repairs exception, we find our own case law adequate for the disposition of the issue at hand. The applicable rule is stated in Veal v. Phillips, 285 Ala. 655, 235 So.2d 799 (1970): [A]n owner of premises is not responsible to an independent contractor for injury from defects or dangers which the contractor knows of, or ought to know of. If the defect or danger is hidden and known to the owner, and neither known to the contractor, nor such as he ought to know, it is the duty of the owner to warn the contractor, and if he does not do this, of course, he is liable for resultant injury. Crawford Johnson & Co. v. Duffner, 279 Ala. 678, 189 So.2d 474.... 285 Ala. at 657-58, 235 So.2d at 802. See, also, Armstrong v. Aetna Ins. Co., 448 So.2d 353 (Ala.1983); Hughes v. Hughes, 367 So.2d 1384 (Ala.1979); and Chrysler Corporation v. Wells, 358 So.2d 426 (Ala.1978). Unquestionably, the trial court, in its denial of Defendants' motion for directed verdict, properly perceived the law of the case with respect to its appropriate function in determining the legal issue of duty and left to the jury the resolution of conflicting inferences of fact. Accordingly, the trial court, and correctly so, decided the duty issue favorably to the plaintiff, subject, of course, to the jury's resolution of certain factual issues. In other words, in submitting the case to the jury, the trial court properly ruled that, in the event the jury found from the evidence that the Defendants created or knew of the hazardous condition ( i.e., the recent use of gasoline in cleaning the tank), and the Plaintiff neither knew, nor should have known, of the specific danger resulting in his subsequent injury, then the Defendants could be held liable to the Plaintiff. The ultimate question, then, is whether the trial court, having properly perceived and applied the law with respect to the duty of a premises owner to an independent contractor and its employees, committed reversible error in charging the jury that assumption of the risk is a legal defense to wantonness? We reaffirm Blount Brothers, supra, and affirm its application to the instant case; therefore, the judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded for a new trial. REVERSED AND REMANDED. FAULKNER, ALMON, SHORES, EMBRY, BEATTY and ADAMS, JJ., concur. TORBERT, C.J., concurs specially. MADDOX, J., dissents.