Opinion ID: 852780
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Restatement section 343A

Text: The Restatement states that a landowner is not liable ... unless it should anticipate harm. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 343A. Even though an independent contractor who is an invitee may have equal or superior knowledge of the dangers on the premises, this language from the Restatement can be read to imply that a possessor of land may be liable to his invitees for physical harm caused to them if the possessor should anticipate the harm despite such knowledge or obviousness. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 343A. Comment f to this section explains that when the landowner should anticipate that the dangerous condition would cause physical harm to the invitee notwithstanding its known or obvious danger, the possessor is not relieved of the duty of reasonable care which he owes to the invitee. Id. cmt. f. This duty may require him to warn the invitee, or to take other reasonable steps to protect him, against the known or obvious condition or activity, if the possessor has reason to expect that the invitee will nevertheless suffer physical harm. Id. PSI's corporate representative testified that he frequently saw ACandS's insulators performing work at the PSI plants in the 1960s and 1970s and never saw the employees taking any precautions to protect themselves from breathing the asbestos insulation. There was testimony that senior members of PSI's management were present while contractors from ACandS worked on insulation. The Court of Appeals reasoned that PSI cannot continue to rely on what might have been a reasonable expectation at the outset where activities inconsistent with that expectation continued for a number of years. PSI Energy, Inc., 802 N.E.2d at 477. PSI responds that it was entitled to assume from the fact that ACandS workers wore no masks that these skilled tradesmen had determined that masks were not necessary. We agree that landowners often hire independent contractors with the understanding that those contractors possess better tools and skills to perform the work than the landowner and therefore the landowner may rely on those skills. This is one of the basic principles underlying the general rule of non-liability and applies in most instances involving a principal who hires an independent contractor. As we observed in Carie with respect to the due precaution exception to the general rule of nonliability for acts of independent contractors, the principal's liability is predicated on the principal's superior familiarity with the risks. A principal who hires an independent contractor to address a problem on the principal's premises is no different from one who engages a contractor for work elsewhere and should have no broader exposure to liability for the contractor's acts. As applied to impose liability on a landowner for a contractor's omission, imposition of liability for something equally known as the contractor amounts to a backdoor expansion of liability for the contractor's actions. No case has found the duty to take reasonable steps to impose on the landlord an obligation to see that a contractor uses appropriate safety equipment. [4] We think that reasonable steps do not extend to, in effect, supervision of the independent contractor's activities. Accordingly, failure to take that action is not a breach of the landowner's standard of care. For that reason, we hold that a landowner ordinarily has no liability to an independent contractor or the contractor's employees for injuries sustained while addressing a condition as to which the landowner has no superior knowledge.