Court Opinion

ID: 9754847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:16:07.688764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:59.134745
License: Public Domain

Prescott, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion:
It is with sincere regret that I am unable to agree with my learned colleagues in the majority opinion in this case. If time would permit, a more thorough and careful analysis of our differences could be presented; but, with the present case load, that time is not available.
The facts are stated in the majority opinion, so they will not be repeated. A careful examination of them will disclose that they are certainly meagre; and, in my judgment they are totally insufficient upon which to base a finding of an “implied invitation” to the appellee to use that portion of appellant’s premises that it had designated as a smoking room for its employees. The facts stated should be supplemented by saying that the statement “smoking is permitted in a room in the cellar of the warehouse” should also state that this permission was granted by the appellant to its employees; and, the distance from the truck that appellee left, to the smoking room is approximately 160 feet, while the distance to the gate that would have taken him off appellant’s property was only 200 feet, a difference of only 40 feet, where he could have smoked at will. I have no quarrel with the principles of law relative to “implied” invitation stated in the majority opinion; but, it is with the application of the facts of this particular case to those principles of law. Every lawyer knows that inferences, presumptions and implications have their proper and valuable places in the law, but they can be carried too far. The question of who is, and who is not, an “invitee” when one is upon premises that belong to another, has been the subject of many judicial decisions. *165There are two tests currently applied, one called the "economic benefit” test, and the other the “invitation” test. The first proceeds upon the assumption that affirmative obligations are imposed on people only in return for some consideration or benefit. The other does not deny that “invitation” may be based upon economic benefit, but it does not regard that as essential. It bases its foundation on the fact that the owner by his arrangement of the premises or other conduct has led the entrant to believe that the premises were intended to be used by visitors for the purpose which the entrant was pursuing. (See foot-note 2).
While I have not completely exhausted the subject, I have found no previous case in Maryland where the “economic” theory has been totally disregarded;1 and none is cited in the majority opinion; but the facts herein do not warrant the finding that the appellee was an “invitee” under either of the above named theories. The appellant is a private business concern; it does not conduct a public place such as a grocery store, a restaurant or a beauty shop, where the public generally is invited. It had set aside for the use of its employees a space in the basement to smoke. The appellee was unquestionably an invitee when he first arrived at appellant’s place of business. But, all of the authorities agree that the invitee is limited to the “area of invitation”, which is that part or parts of the premises that the owner has thrown open to him for the purpose which makes him an invitee. Prosser on Torts, 2nd Ed. p. 458; Gordon Sleeprite Corp. v. Waters, 165 Md. 354, 168 A. 846. I am unable to discover where the evidence discloses any “economic” benefit whatsoever to the appellant when the appellee left the truck to go to the smoking room or where the appellee was on any business, direct or indirect, of the appellant; and the testimony also is totally lacking in showing any inducement or encouragement *166offered by the appellant to the appellee to enter the remainder of its premises. The most that the appellee could possibly expect from the evidence was that he was a licensee.
I would like to comment on one other phase of the opinion. It states “there is another theory of liability for negligence that does not depend on mutual benefit at all” * * * “* * * the second theory (invitation test) is now accepted by the great majority of the courts, and many visitors from whose presence no shadow of pecuniary benefit is to be found are held to be invitees.” With this statement of the law, I agree, but only to its application in proper cases, as outlined by the authors who are quoted.2
The majority opinion further states: “The cases that proceed upon the benefit theory rely, in many instances, upon rather remote and indirect benefits.”; and it cites thereunder Austin v. Buettner, 211 Md. 61, 124 A. 2d 793, and Peregoy v. Western Md. R. R. Co., 202 Md. 203, 95 A. 2d 867. This statement is accurate insofar as the Buettner case is concerned, but that case repeated the definition of an invitee (which is not followed in the present case) given in the Peregoy case, and in Chief Judge Brune’s words that definition was “in much the same terms as are used in par. 332 of the Restatement, Torts”.3 And the opinion in the Buettner *167case was careful to point out the words quoted in foot-note 1. It is, however, difficult to reconcile the above quotation with the facts in the Peregoy case. In that case the use of the railroad property had continued for 22 years. This is what the opinion said about the benefit. The storage of the material was “not a mere casual use of the property for the sole use of Pen-Mar * * * storing these articles on the land of the railroad was to its advantage * * *. It promoted freight business for this carrier. * * * The mutuality of the benefits is palpable from the undisputed facts.” (emphasis supplied) Other Maryland cases, too numerous to mention, may be cited where the “economic” benefit test has been applied, but none has been named that supports the holding made by the majority.
The majority opinion also quotes from Sweeny v. Old Colony and Newport Railroad Company, 92 Mass. 368, 372, which is a leading case on the question of implied invitations. This quotation, in the abstract, lends some support to the majority holding; but, when the facts to which it relates are known, it adds little, if anything thereto. The railroad company established a private grade crossing over its tracks on its property. It permitted the public to use it for years, and placed a flagman there to assist the public in safely crossing. As a result of the flagman wrongfully signaling the plaintiff onto the tracks, the railroad company was held accountable for the plaintiff’s injury. The encouragement and inducement held out in that case so as to make the plaintiff an implied invitee was quite different, in my opinion, from a private business concern with a smoking area for its employees in its cellar.
I shall refer individually to only one more case cited in the majority opinion: Elkton Auto Sales Corporation v. State of Maryland, 53 F. 2d 8 (C. C. A. 4th). In that case, the facts established sufficient economic benefit to go to the jury. *168It was decided in 1931, yet, I have not found it cited nor followed in any Maryland decision since, including the Buettner and Peregoy cases.
The opinion in one paragraph cites seven out-of-State cases on implied invitees. In each case, the defendants conducted a business to which the public in general was invited, such as restaurateurs, beauty shops, grocery stores, etc. In none of them does the holding on the facts go so far, nor nearly so far, as the ruling in the present case. In fact, they have little analogy to the case at bar.
There is one paragraph in the opinion that, to me, is extremely unfortunate even though it be obiter dictum. While it makes no direct holding that there was an express invitation by reason of the statement that two checkers allegedly told the appellee that he could use the smoking room it does say: “* * * it might well be contended that they (the checkers) had apparent authority to extend an invitation.” The testimony specifically discloses that the checkers had no such authority and the appellee testified that he knew what the checkers’ duties were. The opinion then quotes from the Banks case in 212 Md., wherein it is stated: “It is held generally that an employer cannot escape liability for the acts of his agent by placing limitations on his authority not known to others dealing with him nor properly inferable from the nature of his employment.” (Italics supplied.) In that case, we were dealing with the apparent authority of the general manager of a large department store to institute criminal proceedings; in this case, the majority opinion refers to the apparent authority of a checker, whose sole duty it was to see that “the various materials called for in the shipping documents arq loaded or unloaded by employees”. To intimate that the appellant would be responsible for the apparent authority of such an employee to throw open its entire business establishment to invitation seems to me to be contrary to all reason and authority and to completely ignore the above underscored portion of the Banks opinion.
In my judgment, the Court of Appeals will hear from this statement many times in the future, as well as the nisi prius Courts throughout the State, where it will be quoted as au*169thority for the most menial subordinates to make very valuable concessions on behalf of their principals or masters.
To conclude, I think the principle announced and followed in the majority holding was intended to cover the type of cases such as are mentioned in foot-note 2 and the Sweeny case, and not to such facts as we are dealing with in this case, i. e., a private business corporation with a place in its basement set aside for smoking purposes for its employees. Furthermore, with all due deference to my colleagues, I think it does violence to the many Maryland decisions on the subject. It seems that industry, business and those that insure against liability are entitled to rely upon a reasonable stability in the law. They should know with reasonable certainty that for which they are responsible, and that for which they are not responsible. This would permit a better opportunity to appraise the costs and liabilities involved in the normal and logical conduct of their affairs.
In my opinion, appellant’s demurrer prayer B should have been granted.

. This Court said as late as Austin v. Buettner, 211 Md. 61, 68, 124 A. 2d 793. “We think that banking connections and services are of evident actual or potential business advantage or benefit”. This had previously been the recognized test in Maryland in this class of cases. It obviously has no application to the type of cases mentioned in foot-note 2.

. This quotation is taken from Prosser on Torts, p. 456. It is immediately followed by the class of invitees it is intended to cover: “The list has included persons attending free public lectures, chureh services and meetings, college reunions; free spectators invited to public places of amusement; those who enter in the reasonable expectation of buying something not sold on the premises, or come in response to advertisements of something to be given away; and a long array of members of the public making use of municipal parks and playgrounds, swimming pools, libraries, comfort stations, wharves, golf courses, community centers, and state and federal property.” There is little doubt that this class should be included as invitees, but, this author, and no other that I have read, make any suggestion that it includes a private business concern with a smoking room in its cellar.

. As stated by Chief Judge Bruñe, the definition of an invitee in the Peregoy case, and repeated in the Buettner case, is unquestionably taken from par. 332. Restatement, Torts. Yet the majority *167opinion, later on, quotes Prosser as saying that par. 332 is a minority view, and, without specifically overruling the Buettner and Peregoy cases (as well as all previous Maryland decisions on the point)’ fails to follow them.