Court Opinion

ID: 9622554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:19:43.575852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:27:31.033639
License: Public Domain

Concurring opinion by
Justice KELLER.
I joined Justice Johnstone’s dissenting opinion in Lanier v. Wal-Mart Stores, *617Inc.1 because I believed then — and I continue to believe — that the burden of proof in slip and fall cases should remain with the plaintiff and that this Court erred in overruling Kentucky’s well-established common law on premises liability. I recognize, however, that a majority of this Court concluded otherwise and held that “the issues of causation and notice should be treated not as elements of the customer’s case, but as affirmative defenses of the proprietor.”2 I am also aware that legislative efforts to overrule Lanier were unsuccessful in the recent session of Kentucky’s General Assembly.3 Accordingly, although I would vote to overrule Lanier if three other members would join me, like Justice Johnstone, I, too, must temporarily set aside my views and apply the Court’s precedent. After doing so, I concur in the majority opinion based on Lanier.
Finally, I would note that summary judgment was likewise improper in this case under the common law standard purportedly employed by the trial court. As this Court held in a number of pre-Lanier cases, a plaintiff makes a submissible case for negligence when she is able to demonstrate by either direct or circumstantial evidence that the condition that caused the injury was either created under the premises owner’s authority or existed for a sufficient length of time prior to injury that the premises owner in the exercise of ordinary care could have discovered it.4 Appellee’s instructor, Don Gaines, who was present at the time of Appellant’s injury, testified that the offending carpet remnant was cut when the classroom carpet was installed approximately five years prior to the incident. Further, Gaines testified that the carpet had been placed in the aisle in order to protect the carpet from “sloppy students.” This evidence was sufficient to permit a jury to reasonably infer either (1) that Appellee or its employees created the condition or (2) that the condition existed for five years prior to the accident. Additionally, because of the carpet’s lack of edging, the jury could have inferred that the carpet remnant created an unsafe condition. Thus, applying the common law standard, Gaines’s testimony created a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Appellee created or should have known about an unsafe condition that caused Appellant’s injury.

. Ky., 99 S.W.3d 431 (2003).

. Id. at 435 (quoting Smith v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Ky., 6 S.W.3d 829, 831-31 (1999) (Cooper, J., concurring)).

. House Bill 620 § 1 (2004 Regular Session) (“It is the intent of the General Assembly to restore and codify in Sections 1 to 5 of this Act the common law governing premises liability claims and lawsuits against businesses offering goods and services for sale as the common law existed in the Commonwealth prior to and until March 30, 2003.”).

. Cumberland College v. Gaines, Ky., 432 S.W.2d 650, 652 (1968) ("However, where it is not shown that the condition was created by the possessor or under his authority, or is one about which he has taken action, then it is necessary to introduce sufficient proof by either direct evidence or circumstantial evidence that the condition existed a sufficient length of time prior to injury so that in the exercise of ordinary care, the possessor could have discovered it and either remedied it or given fair adequate warning of its existence to those who might be endangered by it.”) (citing Kroger Co. v. Thompson, Ky., 432 S.W.2d 31 (1968)). See also Jones v. Jarvis, Ky., 437 S.W.2d 189, 190 (1969); Wiggins v. Scruggs, Ky.App., 442 S.W.2d 581, 582 (1969); Nelson v. Midwest Mortgage Co., Ky., 426 S.W.2d 149, 150 (1968).