Opinion ID: 864452
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether the trial court properly granted

Text: JUDGMENT NOTWITHSTANDING THE VERDICT. II. WHETHER THE RECORD ESTABLISHES A BREACH OF DUTY BY EITHER JAMES OR STACY EVANS. ¶20. We first must determine what duty was owed Corley by James and Stacy. This question can only be answered when we determine Corley's status as to James and Stacy. After those questions are resolved, we must ascertain, in the light most favorable to Corley, giving him the benefit of all favorable inferences that may reasonably be drawn from the evidence, whether there is substantial evidence in support of the verdict. Is the evidence of such quality and weight that reasonable and fair minded jurors, in the exercise of impartial judgment, may have reached different conclusions? ¶21. Mississippi adheres to the invitee/licensee/trespasser trichotomy when analyzing the property owner's duty of care. Hudson v. Courtesy Motors, Inc. 794 So.2d 999 (Miss. 2001). Thus, Corley's status as to James and Stacy determines what duty they owed to Corley. In Hoffman v. Planters Gin Co. 358 So.2d 1008, 1011 (Miss. 1978), we held: As to status, an invitee is a person who goes upon the premises of another in answer to the express or implied invitation of the owner or occupant for their mutual advantage...A licensee is one who enters upon the property of another for his own convenience, pleasure, or benefit pursuant to the license or implied permission of the owner whereas a trespasser is one who enters upon another's premises without license, invitation, or other right. 10 (citing Langford v. Mercurio, 254 Miss. 788, 183 So.2d 150 (1966); Wright v. Caffey, 239 Miss. 470, 123 So.2d 841 (1960); Kelley v. Sportsmen's Speedway, 224 Miss. 632, 80 So.2d 785 (1955)). ¶22. As to Stacy, Corley was an invitee. In order to create invitee status there must be a mutual advantage between landowner and invitee. Here, Stacy received a $7 admission fee from Corley, and Corley received the benefit of attending the crawfish boil. Therefore, there is a mutual advantage, and, invitee status is established on the part of Corley. The landowner is not an insurer of the invitee’s safety, but does owe to an invitee the duty “to keep the premises reasonably safe, and when not reasonably safe, to warn only where there is hidden danger or peril that is not in plain and open view.” (Emphasis added). Caruso v. Picayune Pizza Hut, Inc., 598 So.2d 770, 773 (Miss. 1992), citing McGovern v. Scarborough, 566 So.2d 1225, 1228 (Miss. 1990).8 Along with that duty, is the duty of the landowner to protect invitees from injuries which are reasonably foreseeable. Kelly v. Retzer & Retzer, Inc., 417 So.2d 556, 560 (Miss. 1982). ¶23. We said in Grisham v. John Q. Long V.F.W. Post, No. 4057, Inc., 519 So.2d 413, 416 (Miss. 1988), that a tavern keeper can only be held liable where he had cause to anticipate the wrongful or negligent act of [an] unruly patron.” Here, we would hardly classify Stacy as a “tavern keeper,” but regardless, the record does not reveal that she had any cause to anticipate violent behavior of her festivalgoers at the crawfish boil. 8 See however, Tharp v. Bunge Corp., 641 So.2d 20, 25 (Miss. 1994), wherein we abolished the “open and obvious” defense as a complete bar, and invoked the application of our long-standing comparative negligence doctrine. Miss. Code Ann. § 11-7-15 (1972). 11 ¶24. The introduction of the pistol into this case and one friend accidentally shooting another friend did not provide Stacy with adequate warning. Moreover, these events, both the mere presence of a pistol and the actual shooting, are not reasonably foreseeable. Additionally, Stacy employed three security guards to patrol the event. In three previous crawfish boils, only one fight had broken out. This prior altercation three years before the current situation was not adequate notice to Stacy that an intoxicated friend would accidently shoot another friend at the crawfish boil. Stacy simply had no cause to anticipate a negligent shooting based on one minor altercation at the three events she had sponsored. ¶25. As an important corollary to the landowner's duty, we have held repeatedly that owners are not insurers of an invitee's safety. See Gatewood v. Sampson, 812 So.2d 212, 219 (Miss. 2002); J.C. Penney Co. v. Sumrall, 318 So.2d 829, 832 (Miss. 1975); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Tisdale, 185 So.2d 916, 917 (Miss. 1966). Should we set aside the trial court’s grant of the JNOV in this case, we most assuredly would be informing premises owners/landowners that they have now become the insurers of an invitee's safety. ¶26. In the recent Gatewood case, we upheld the trial court’s judgment on a jury verdict of $308,000. In Gatewood, Roy Sampson (Sampson) had pulled into a service station owned by Jeff Gatewood (Gatewood). Sampson’s purpose for being on the premises was to buy gas and use one of the pay phones; therefore, Sampson was clearly an invitee under our premises liability law. As Sampson was using the pay phone, he was attacked by a man with a gun, occupants from the car in which Sampson’s assailant had exited fired upon both Sampson and his assailant as the two men struggled over the weapon, Sampson’s assailant was killed fromone of the shots coming from the car, and Sampson was struck in the back of the head by one of the bullets, but survived the attack. In citing Lyle v. Mladinich, 584 So.2d 397, 399 (Miss. 1991), we stated that: 12 [there are] two ways to establish legal causation, or foreseeability, in cases of assault by a third person. “The requisite `cause to anticipate’ the assault may arise from (1) actual or constructive knowledge of the assailant’s violent nature, or (2) actual or constructive knowledge that an atmosphere of violence exists [on the premises]...” Lyle, 584 So.2d at 399 (quotingGrisham, 519 So.2d at 416). Evidence of the existence of an atmosphere of violence may include “the overall pattern of criminal activity prior to the event in question that occurred in the general vicinity of the defendant’s business premises, as well as the frequency of criminal activity on the premises.” Lyle, 584 So.2d at 399. Gatewood, 812 So. 2d at 220. Sampson offered evidence which revealed “that sixty violent crimes were reported to police in the neighborhood of the Ellis Isle Exxon [Gatewood’s service station] within the three years prior to the attack. Thirty-two of those crimes reportedly occurred in the nearby Ellis Isle Shopping Center. Two incidents occurred in close proximity to the gas station: an armed carjacking occurred on the street in front of the station and a bullet fired from nearby entered the building. A fight also reportedly occurred in the Exxon parking lot.” Id. We went further to distinguish the facts in Gatewood from those in Crain v. Cleveland Lodge 1532, Order of Moose, Inc., 641 So.2d 1186, 1189 (Miss. 1994), in that Crain failed to offer evidence sufficient to establish proximate cause, whereas Gatewood offered sufficient evidence as to proximate cause and foreseeability so as to present a jury issue. 812 So.2d at 221. Without question, in comparing the “foreseeability” evidence presented in Gatewood with the evidence presented in the case before the Court today, Corley’s evidence falls considerably short of that necessary to present a jury issue on foreseeability. ¶27. In referring to the “cause to anticipate” test quoted in Lyle, 584 So.2d at 399, Corley asserts that an injured party can only recover after at least one violent act had already occurred, thereby placing defendant on notice of the dangerous condition. In the Lyle case, evidence was offered that between 1981 and 1989, numerous criminal charges were filed against persons in the tavern and the adjacent parking lot. In Lyle, we held that a jury question existed as to whether the property owners’ 13 discontinuance of the use of security guards in their bar parking lot constituted negligence, in light of the fact that there had been a history of fighting outside the bar. That case is not analogous to the case sub judice as the facts are dissimilar. We held in Lyle that a fact question was created because there was an approximate nine-year history of arrests at the property in question. Moreover, Lyle involved a bar, opened with regular hours, while the case sub judice involved a tract of farm land opened once a year for a crawfish boil. Accordingly, for the reasons stated, the trial court properly granted Stacy’s JNOV motion. ¶28. As to James, Corley was a licensee; therefore, James only had the duty to refrain from willfully or wantonly injuring Corley. Adams ex rel. Adams v. Fred's Dollar Store of Batesville, 497 So.2d 1097, 1101 (Miss. 1986). James derived no benefit from the crawfish boil and was not involved in its promotion or staging. There is no evidence in the record that James willfully or wantonly injured Corley, or even had anything whatsoever to do with the crawfish boil, other than his brief attendance at the event. Thus, JNOV was likewise proper as to James. III. WHETHER THIS COURT SHOULD CHANGE WELL SETTLED MISSISSIPPI PREMISES LIABILITY LAW. ¶29. Corley urges this Court to adopt the “California Rule” of premises liability regarding third party conduct. Also, Judge Evans very eloquently conveyed his firm convictions in his Opinion and Order Granting Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict. In what he understandably described as “an unpleasant decision,” Judge Evans, stated, in part: [Scott Corley’s] injuries are tragic, severe, and permanent. His life has been forever changed. If the jury’s verdict were collected, occupational therapy might be afforded and his life made easier. Instead, in addition to the injustice of the first tragedy, this young Plaintiff must now suffer a second. And this one at the hands of our State’s common law. 14 In his opinion and order, Judge Evans likewise requested this Court to consider adoption of the California Rule as to premises liability regarding third party conduct, which is a totality of the circumstances standard as opposed to a cause to anticipate standard.9 ¶30. The California Rule states: ...in determining the existence of a landowner's duty to protect invitees from the wrongful conduct of third persons, foreseeability is measured by all of the circumstances including the nature, condition and location of the defendant’s premises and defendant's prior experience, bearing in mind that what is required to be foreseeable is the general nature of the event or harm, not its precise nature or manner of occurrence. Onciano v. Golden Palace Restaurant, Inc., 219 Cal.App.3d 385, 394, 268 Cal. Rptr. 96, 99 (Cal. Ct. App. 1990) (citing Isaacs v. Huntington Mem'l Hosp., 38 Cal.3d 112, 129, 211 Cal.Rptr. 356, 695 P.2d 653 (1985)). Onciano and our reference to Onciano in our decision in Crain are the bases for the trial court’s plea to this Court to revisit our premises liability law as to third party conduct. However, subsequent to the California Supreme Court’s decision in Isaacs and a state district court of appeal decision in Onciano, the California Supreme Court revisited the issue of third party conduct premises liability in Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center, 6 Cal.4th 666, 678, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 145, 863 P.2d 207, 215 (1993),10 and in doing so, admitted that certain broad language in Isaacs 9 In Crain v. Cleveland Lodge 1532, Order of Moose, Inc., 641 So.2d 1186, 1190-91 (Miss. 1994), this Court declined a similar invitation to adopt the “California Rule.” We recognized that the California experience revealed that the California courts eventually “stretched the `totality of the circumstances’ test to the level of strict liability....” Id. at 1191. 10 Our research on Ann M. reveals a “negative indirect history” which guides us to a California Supreme Court case, Saelzler v. Advanced Group 400, 25 Cal.4th 763, 767, 107 Cal.Rptr.2d 617, 619-20 23 P.3d 1143, 1145-46 (2001). A close study of Saelzler reveals that amendments to the California summary judgment statute (California Code of Civil Procedure § 437(c)), may have superceded certain language in various cases, including Ann M.; however, the statutory amendments relate to modification of an almost “impossible” burden of proof placed on the moving party to adoption of “the 15 had caused confusion in that there was at least an inference that analyzing foreseeability to determine duty by a premises owner was normally a question of fact to be determined by a jury, and that any such interpretation of Isaacs was error. The Ann M. court went on to hold that “[f]oreseeability, when analyzed to determine the existence or scope of a duty, is a question of law to be decided by the court.” 863 P.2d at 215. Recently, another California district court of appeal questioned the holdings in Isaacs and Onciano. In Eric J. v. Betty M., 76 Cal.App.4th 715, 90 Cal.Rptr.2d 549, 554 (Cal. Ct. App. 1999), that court stated: The viability of the holding in Oncianao is questionable in light of the subsequent Supreme Court decision in Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center, 6 Cal.4th 666, 25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 863 P.2d 207 (1993). Onciano relied on Isaacs, 38 Cal.3d 112, 211 Cal.Rptr. 356, 695 P.2d 653 to reject the idea that a lack of prior criminal activity was not dispositive in the landowner’s favor, a fact which Justice Fred Woods would find troubling in a separate concurring opinion, where he lamented Isaacs’ “broad brush dicta.”.......Liability in the face of the absence of notice of prior criminal activity, however, was dispositive in favor of the landowner in Ann M., a rationale which Justice Mosk, in his dissent in Ann M. criticized as being inconsistent with Isaacs......... Accordingly, it appears that the California courts have at least partially retreated from the Isaacs/Onciano pronouncements. In the end, we see no reason to endure the somewhat dis-jointed California experience and abandon our well-established premises liability law concerning third-party conduct. ¶31. Returning to the case before us today, the record does not support a finding that the Evanses should have reasonably foreseen the third-party conduct of a drunken Harden who accidently shot his friend, Scott Corley. The third-party assault by Harden upon his friend, Scott Corley, was not foreseeable because the requisite “cause to anticipate” did not arise since Stacy had “no actual or constructive knowledge of federal mechanism of burden shifting” [in summary judgment motion hearings]. Accordingly, Ann M. is still “good law” in California. 16 Harden’s violent nature,” or “actual or constructive knowledge that an atmosphere of violence existed” on her land at the crawfish boil. ¶32. We conclude that no liability was imposed upon Stacy or James under our well-settled premises liability law. We decline to adopt the California Rule in Mississippi, because that experience reveals that such a rule could ultimately create strict liability for property owners, causing them to become insurers of an invitee's safety.