Opinion ID: 1240833
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: accessibility act

Text: Whether the trial court correctly granted summary judgment depends upon whether the Accessibility Act creates a higher standard of care in foreign substance slip and fall cases to physically disabled individuals than to other business patrons. Although we are sympathetic to Olson, we find nothing in the Act evinces a Legislative intent to alter traditional common law principles of foreign substance slip and fall liability. As noted by the Court of Appeals, the General Assembly enacted legislation in 1963 for the construction of public buildings in such a manner as to make them accessible to physically disabled persons. Act No. 174, 1963 Acts 189. Olson, supra . Thereafter, the Legislature enacted the Accessibility Act. The purpose of the Act is to enable persons with disabilities to achieve maximum personal independence; to use and enjoy ... public buildings ..., and to participate fully in all aspects of society. S.C.Code Ann. § 10-5-210 (2001 Supp.). In furtherance of these goals, the S.C. Board for a Barrier Free Design [4] was created and required to adopt the latest revisions of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) specifications A117.1, with modifications as the Board deems appropriate. S.C.Code Ann. § 10-5-250 (Supp.2001). Section 4.5.1 of the ANSI standards, which was adopted by the Board, provides that floors shall be stable, firm, and slip resistant, and shall comply with section 4.5. [5] (emphasis supplied). It is conceded by all parties to this case that the floor of the Faculty House was sufficiently slip resistant when dry. Accordingly, the issue is whether, by virtue of the Act, Faculty House had a duty, solely with respect to its disabled patrons, to ensure that its floor were more slip resistant, in the presence of a foreign substance, than required by common law. In Wintersteen v. Food Lion, Inc., 344 S.C. 32, 35-36, 542 S.E.2d 728, 730 (2001), we adhered to our common law foreign substance analysis stating, although there may be a foreseeable risk that substances will wind up on the floor, there is no specific act of the defendant which causes the substance to arrive there, i.e., it generally arrives there through the handling of a third party. To require shopkeepers to anticipate and prevent the acts of third parties is, in effect, to render them insurers of their customers' safety. This is simply not the law of this state. Olson asserts that section 10-5-260 of the Act establishes a higher duty of care than owed under the common law. We disagree. Section 10-5-260 provides, in pertinent part, It is the responsibility of the owner or the occupant of property which contains structural or building elements or components required to be in compliance with this article, to continuously maintain these elements and components in a condition that is safe and usable by persons with disabilities at all times. (Emphasis supplied). We agree with the Court of Appeals' holding that the plain and ordinary meaning of maintain under § 10-5-260 refers to the safety of the structural elements of the floor, not to the presence of a foreign substance on its surface. To hold otherwise would impose a duty upon merchants to continuously inspect and maintain floors to ensure their freedom from foreign substances. Such a duty would be contrary to our traditional foreign substance analysis. We find nothing in the Accessibility Act which alters these very basic tenets of South Carolina law. While we agree with Olson that the Act does, indeed, impose some heightened burdens upon merchants and business owners to ensure that buildings are accessible and barrier free, we simply cannot agree that the Act also requires those merchants to essentially ensure the safety of physically disabled patrons in foreign substance situations. Had the Legislature intended such a broad departure from our common law analysis, it would have said so. City of Myrtle Beach v. Juel Corp., 344 S.C. 43, 543 S.E.2d 538 (2001)(In construing statutes, words must be given their plain and ordinary meaning without resorting to subtle or forced construction to limit or expand the statute's operation; statutes in derogation of common law must be strictly construed and should not be impliedly extended to cases not within their scope and purpose). We cannot escape the conclusion, as reached by the trial court and the Court of Appeals, that there is simply nothing in the Act or the ANSI standards which requires, in foreign substance cases, a merchant's floors to have a higher degree of slip-resistance when wet than when dry, or which imposes upon merchants a duty to continuously inspect for foreign substances. Likewise, we find no indication the Legislature intended to abrogate the common law as regards physically disabled foreign substance slip and fall victims. Accordingly, we affirm the Court of Appeals' holding that Faculty House was properly granted summary judgment. [6]