Opinion ID: 2518471
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Duty to Inspect

Text: [¶ 18] There is no question Mr. Landsiedel offered and the district court refused the duty to inspect instruction. Therefore, the record reflects clearly and unequivocally the fact complained of and part one of the plain error rule is satisfied. The difficulty arises with the remaining parts of the plain error rule, whether: the facts prove a transgression of a clear rule of law; the error affected a substantial right of Mr. Landsiedel; and the ruling materially prejudiced him. [¶ 19] In presenting his argument, Mr. Landsiedel acknowledges Wyoming has not previously addressed whether a landowner has a duty to inspect and urges this Court to adopt Restatement 2d of Torts § 343 (1965), which provides as follows: A possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm caused to his invitees by a condition on the land if, but only if, he (a) knows or by the exercise of reasonable care would discover the condition, and should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to such invitees, and (b) should expect that they will not discover or realize the danger of will fail to protect themselves against it, and (c) fails to exercise reasonable care to protect them against the danger. He asserts the adoption of this provision would not really change Wyoming law because we recognized essentially the same duty described in Restatement 2d § 343 in Rhoades v. K-Mart Corp., 863 P.2d 626, 629 (Wyo.1993) and Buttrey Food Stores Division v. Coulson, 620 P.2d 549, 552 (Wyo.1980) in which we held: [A store owner] must use ordinary care to keep the premises in a safe condition; that is he must accept an affirmative duty to protect [visitors] against dangers known to him and against dangers which he might discover by the use of reasonable care. Mr. Landsiedel contends on the basis of this holding that the instruction he offered was proper and the district court transgressed a clear rule of law by refusing to give it. We disagree. [¶ 20] The instruction Mr. Landsiedel offered goes further than the rule recognized in Rhoades or the Restatement by expressly imposing a duty to inspecta duty that Mr. Landsiedel concedes has never been adopted in Wyoming. A rule that has never been adopted cannot be a clear rule of law. Therefore, the district court cannot have transgressed a clear rule of law by refusing to give it as is required in order to show plain error. [¶ 21] Moreover, the instruction given by the court, taken from the Wyoming Civil Pattern Jury Instructions, stated as follows: The owner of a business must act as a reasonable person in maintaining its property in a reasonably safe condition in view of all of the circumstances, including the likelihood of injury to another, the seriousness of the injury, and the burden of avoiding the risk. Based upon this instruction, counsel for Mr. Landsiedel argued in closing that Buffalo Properties' duty was set at a high threshold because of the greater likelihood of injury on premises where alcohol is served; there was a risk of very serious injury if proper precautions were not taken to install appropriate glass in the doors; the burden of avoiding the risk was small compared with the seriousness of the injury caused; and Buffalo Properties took no action to inspect to determine whether appropriate safety glass was installed in the doors. Given this argument, we are unable to see how the district court's decision to give the above instruction and refuse Mr. Landsiedel's proposed instruction affected a substantial right or materially prejudiced him. Even without the duty to inspect instruction, Mr. Landsiedel argued that Buffalo Properties had such a duty and presented evidence in support of his argument. We turn to the question of whether plain error occurred when the district court refused to give Mr. Landsiedel's instruction that the UBC and ANSI standards established a minimum standard of care.