Opinion ID: 895009
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Premises Condition Theory

Text: Moritz alleged a premises-condition claim against all the defendants. Generally, a landowner is liable to employees of an independent contractor only for claims arising from a pre-existing defect rather than from the contractor's work, [12] and then only if the pre-existing defect was concealed: With respect to existing defects, an owner or occupier has a duty to inspect the premises and warn of concealed hazards the owner knows or should have known about. [13] Moritz's claimed defect  the absence of rails on the loading ramp  was obviously a pre-existing condition and obviously not a concealed hazard. Limiting premises liability to concealed hazards is not unique to cases involving independent contractors. A lessor who relinquishes possession or occupancy of premises also has no duty to warn of defects except those that are concealed. [14] In both cases, the landowner's duty is limited because control is being turned over to someone else in a way that is not true of shoppers, sightseers, or other business invitees. An independent contractor owes its own employees a nondelegable duty to provide them a safe place to work, safe equipment to work with, and warn them of potential hazards; [15] it also controls the details and methods of its own work, including the labor and equipment employed. [16] Thus, one who hires an independent contractor generally expects the contractor to take into account any open and obvious premises defects in deciding how the work should be done, what equipment to use in doing it, and whether its workers need any warnings. Placing the duty on an independent contractor to warn its own employees or make safe open and obvious defects ensures that the party with the duty is the one with the ability to carry it out. The dissent argues that it makes no sense to allocate duty in this manner because Moritz had no control over the workplace conditions. GE may have controlled Moritz's loading options, but not where he chose to secure his load. Accordingly, it had a duty only to warn him of concealed defects he might encounter in doing his own work. The absence of handrails here was clearly not a concealed defect. If owners and occupiers have no duty to warn an independent contractor of open and obvious defects, the defendants had no duty to warn Moritz that the ramp he had been using for more than a year had no handrails.