Court Opinion

ID: 9687913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:53:07.641941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:32.873945
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
The question is whether defendant’s duty to exercise due care for its business invitees was coterminous with the legal description of its landlord’s property. The trial court held the duty existed as to a part of the business ingress and egress which extended over a public parking. Under the somewhat unusual facts of the case I agree with the trial court. I dissent because I believe defendant appropriated the part of the parking in question to its own use.
Defendant’s 1958 building project included a walkway along and across the parking at the front of the building. The walkway, immediately adjacent to the street, was in addition and parallel to the public crosswalk. From this walkway another walk, including the steps in question, was constructed across the parking, the public crosswalk, and across a part of defendant’s premises directly into the public entrance to defendant’s building. The record easily supports the trial court’s finding the walks were constructed on the parking in such a manner as to render the adjacent street the only practical parking place for defendant’s customers. To be sure the steps in question could have been used by persons who were not in the process of entering or leaving defendant’s building. But nearly all persons on the steps were doing so. And occasionally pedestrian customers entered the building via the regular public crosswalk without traversing the steps in question; but few did. It seems to me the controlling fact remains that defendant’s sole reason for constructing and maintaining the steps in question was as a means of public ingress and egress. The steps were not public in the sense ordinary parking crosswalks are public. Defendant neither received nor sought the city’s permission in constructing them.
*250I. I have no quarrel with the fundamental principles which greatly limit an occupant’s duty to exercise due care in protection of persons outside the premises occupied. See Prosser on Torts, Fourth Ed., section 57, page 351; 62 Am.Jur.2d, Premises Liability, section 5, page 230. The majority points out we adhere to these recognized limitations as to natural accumulations of ice and snow on public crosswalks adjacent to the premises. Disbrowe v. Tucker, 211 N.W.2d 318 (Iowa 1973).
The trial court refers to defendant’s dominion over the parking in question as constructive possession and control. But for the function of the steps and walk at the point in question as a part of ingress and egress the majority would be right in challenging this reference. I agree there was insufficient control of the parking by defendant to raise a duty to a member of the public who might traverse it.
“ * * * In order to have the occupation or control of premises necessary to impose a legal duty with respect to the condition or use of those premises, one must ordinarily have the power and the right to admit individuals to the premises or to exclude them from the premises. * * 62 Am.Jur.2d, Premises Liability, section 12, page 240.
II. To reach its conclusion the majority must have adopted either or both of the following findings: (1) There was no factual basis in the record to support the trial court’s finding the steps and walk in question were a part of the ingress and egress to defendant’s place of business. (2) No duty exists to exercise due care to business invitees at a place of ingress or egress outside the occupant’s premises. I think the majority is wrong on either count.
The facts previously outlined seem to me ample to preclude the majority’s holding as a matter of law that the walks and steps in question were not constructed and maintained by defendant as a part of the means of ingress and egress for its customers. It is conceded some few customers may have gained entrance to the building another way and is also conceded the walk could have been traversed by others. But this does not detract from the purpose of the walk and steps in question. The use of the walk may not have been entirely exclusive. But the purpose of their construction and maintenance was exclusive. It was to provide the entrance and exit for its business customers.
The duty of a land occupant to exercise due care to invitees is distinctive from the ordinary duties an occupant might have to those outside the premises. See Prosser on Torts, Fourth Ed., section 61, page 385.
“The special obligation toward invitees exists only while the visitor is upon the part of the premises which the occupier has thrown open to him for the purpose which makes him an invitee. The ‘area of invitation’ will of course vary with the circumstances of the case. It extends to the entrance to the property, and to a safe exit after the purpose is concluded; * * Id. at page 391. See also Frantz v. Knights of Columbus, 205 N.W.2d 705 (Iowa 1973).
We have extended the duty to exercise care for invitees beyond the premises where a designated means of ingress and egress extended across a public alley. Smith v. J. C. Penney Co., 260 Iowa 573, 149 N.W.2d 794. The majority claims Smith can be distinguished on the ground in Smith ice was accumulated by artificial means. If Smith could be distinguished on such a basis there would have been no occasion for us to point out and rely on the fact of ingress and egress across a public alley in that case. I think the majority in effect overrules Smith by refusing to acknowledge the duty we pointed out exists as to invitees whose designated entrance and exit extends over a public way.
A similar result was reached in Merkel v. Safeway Store, Inc., 77 N.J.Super. 535, 187 A.2d 52 (1962). The plaintiff in that case, a business invitee, parked his automo*251bile in a parking area provided by defendant. Similarly, access to defendant’s store was across a public sidewalk upon which the defendant slipped and fell. It was conceded in that opinion the plaintiff could not have recovered had he been a mere pedestrian. It was however held he could recover under his status as an invitee. The facts in Merkel were strikingly similar to those presented in this appeal and the reasoning in the Merkel opinion seems to me inescapable, especially in view of our holding in Smith v. J. C. Penney Co., supra.
I believe defendant owed plaintiff a duty to exercise due care at the point in question.
III. Because the majority holds there is no duty it does not reach the question whether such a duty was breached. I think there was ample evidence to support the findings of the trial court. 'We reviewed the controlling principles in some detail in Frantz v. Knights of Columbus, supra. What we said there need not be repeated. I would affirm.