Opinion ID: 4537941
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unreasonably Dangerous Condition

Text: An Arkansas property owner has a duty to exercise ordinary care to maintain a premises in a reasonably safe condition for the benefit of invitees. Dye v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 300 Ark. 197, 198, 777 S.W.2d 861, 862 (1989) (directed verdict in slip and fall case affirmed on appeal). An invitee is one who visits “for a purpose connected with the 18 business dealings of the owner.” Young v. Paxton, 316 Ark. 655, 660, 873 S.W.2d 546, 549 (1994). An Arkansas landowner generally does not owe a duty to an invitee if a danger is known or obvious. Kuykendall v. Newgent, 255 Ark. 945, 947, 504 S.W.2d 344, 345 (1974) (citing William L. Prosser, Handbook on the Law of Torts, § 61 (4th ed. 1971); 2 Fowler v. Harper and Fleming James, The Law of Torts § 27.13 (1956); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343A (1965)); accord Dye, 300 Ark. at 198, 777 S.W.2d at 862. An owner’s duty to warn an invitee of a dangerous condition applies only to defects or conditions that are hidden dangers, such as traps, snares, pitfalls and the like—hazards which are known to the owner-invitor but not known to the invitee and would not be observed by the latter in the exercise of ordinary care. Ethyl Corp. v. Johnson, 345 Ark. 476, 481, 49 S.W.3d 644, 648 (2001); Jenkins v. Hestand’s Grocery, 320 Ark. 485, 487, 898 S.W.2d 30, 31 (1995) (no duty or liability for owner because hazard not known or hidden); Kroger Co. v. Smith, 93 Ark. App. 270, 275, 218 S.W.3d 359, 363 (2005); Kuykendall, 255 Ark. at 947, 504 S.W.2d at 345. A slip-and-fall by an invitee on an owner’s premises does not in itself give rise to an inference of negligence as a matter of law. Black v. Wal-Mart Stores, 316 Ark. 418, 419, 872 S.W.2d 56, 57 (1994) (collecting cases); accord Dye, 300 Ark. at 198, 777 S.W.2d at 862. “[I]n virtually every case involving a fall, the plaintiff will describe a floor as slick or slippery, and this alone is not sufficient to support a case for negligence.” Id. at 421, 872 S.W.2d at 58. To sum up, in a slip-and-fall case, the plaintiff bears the burden of proving that there was a dangerous condition, known to the owner of the premises, and hidden from or 19 not obvious to the plaintiff. Importantly, the premises owner’s duty does not extend to dangers that should have been obvious or known to the plaintiff. In this case, testimony regarding the circumstances of the plaintiff’s fall came from the plaintiff herself, a store employee, and the plaintiff’s expert witness. The plaintiff was running through the rain toward the defendants’ store in her “flip-flops or tennis shoes” when she, according to her testimony, slipped and fell on the concrete sidewalk outside the door. The store employee testified that she had seen four other people “slip” on the concrete outside the door in the six years she worked there, though it is not clear from the employee’s testimony if those others actually fell to the ground. Likewise, this testimony lacked any specificity as to the circumstances of those other “slips,” such as whether the person was walking or running, whether the person was wearing high heels or loose-shoe strings, whether it was raining, etc. There was no specific evidence relating the cause of those slips or their relationship to the sidewalk. This is important because the mere fact that someone slips and falls does not give rise to even an inference of negligence on the part of the defendant. Black, supra. The store employee also testified that the right side of the concrete outside the store’s door (which is where she saw Karen fall, according to her testimony) appeared smoother and slicker than the concrete on the left side of the door. But this supports the open and obvious nature of the claimed defect. Finally, the plaintiff’s expert witness, who performed slip-resistance testing on the concrete outside the store’s door, testified as follows: 20 The results of my testing showed that there were, areas of at or below low tread -- the low tread reactions. Some moderate slip resistance, or tread reactions, and it also showed that there was some areas that had high reactions as well … It is correct that none of the areas tested had low traction. I do not know the exact place Ms. Elder fell. I don’t know how much water was on the concrete when she fell. (Emphases added.) Overall, even giving the evidence its full weight in favor of the plaintiff, it does not establish the existence of an unreasonably dangerous condition. If there was a risk of harm here, then the risk should have been known or obvious to the plaintiff. In the plaintiff’s situation, what would she know through reasonable exercise of ordinary care? She ought to know that rain makes things wet. She ought to know that wetness could make surfaces, such as walkways, slicker. And she ought to know that a given spot on a walkway surface (whether it be a street, a parking lot, or a sidewalk) might be slicker or rougher than a different spot on that same surface. One can only wonder how many miles of different outdoor walkways there are in this country, and those walkways do not become “unreasonably dangerous conditions” simply because it starts to rain. With all due respect to Elder, the risk of harm at the time of her fall should have been known or obvious to her. That the defendants may have been told of others who slipped in the same place (under conditions we know nothing about) would not change this conclusion. Under the law, that means Elder cannot recover damages from the defendants. Not every case features an injury that is compensable, and in my view, this is such a case. 21