Court Opinion

ID: 9938686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 19:03:45.900039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:19.984960
License: Public Domain

I disagree with the majority's holding that a storekeeper cannot delegate janitorial work to an independent contractor. That work is not inherently or intrinsically dangerous, so as to be non-delegable. An employee of the independent contractor should not be permitted to sue the storekeeper for the negligence of the independent contractor in performing janitorial work. In this case, however, we are dealing with a storekeeper/customer relationship, and the duty that arises from that relationship. If the storekeeper permits a customer to be in harm's way while the customer is an invitee on the storekeeper's premises, by not exercising reasonable care to provide and maintain reasonably safe premises for the use of his customers or by not warning the invitee of danger of which the storekeeper knows or ought to know and of which the customer is ignorant, then there is a breach of duty. The storekeeper's warning, the customer's ignorance, *Page 981 
and the reasonably safe condition of the premises were contested questions to be resolved by the trier of the facts, and I concur for this reason.