Opinion ID: 1917514
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the record establishes a breach of duty by either james or stacy evans.

Text: ¶ 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. (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 festival-goers at the crawfish boil. ¶ 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 from one 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: [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 (quoting Grisham, 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' 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.