Court Opinion

ID: 9763045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:35:57.938412+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:39.136682
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my judgment, there is evidence in this case which is sufficient to establish a prima facie case of negligence against Penn Traffic Company under the principle of law articulated in Section 344 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts.
This section of the Restatement imposes liability upon a possessor of land for the negligent acts of third persons under circumstances identified in the rule as follows:
§ 344. Business Premises Open to Public: Acts of Third Persons or Animals
A possessor of land who holds it open to the public for entry for his business purposes is subject to liability to members of the public while they are upon the land for such a purpose, for physical harm caused by the accidental, negligent, or intentionally harmful acts of third persons or animals, and by the failure of the possessor to exercise reasonable care to
(a) discover that such acts are being done or are likely to be done, or
*194(b) give a warning adequate to enable the visitors to avoid the harm, or otherwise to protect them against it.
The principle may, in limited circumstances, impose upon a storekeeper a duty to police his or her premises. This duty is explained in comment f as follows:
f Duty to police premises. Since the possessor is not an insurer of the visitor’s safety, he is ordinarily under no duty to exercise any care until he knows or has reason to know that the acts of the third person are occurring, or are about to occur. He may, however, know or have reason to know, from past experience, that there is a likelihood of conduct on the part of third persons in general which is likely to endanger the safety of the visitor, even though he has no reason to expect it on the part of any particular individual. If the place or character of his business, or his past experience, is such that he should reasonably anticipate careless or criminal conduct on the part of third persons, either generally or at some particular time, he may be under a duty to take precautions against it, and to provide a reasonably sufficient number of servants to afford a reasonable protection.
The Restatement’s duty to police was adopted and applied to a grocery store owner in Miller v. Peter J. Schmitt & Co., Inc., 405 Pa.Super. 502, 592 A.2d 1324 (1991). There, a majority of the Court imposed upon a storekeeper the duty to supervise an independent contractor who delivered ice to the store in order to protect customers against the possibility that the contractor would leave water on the floor causing it to become slippery. The majority thus found liability even though the customer had fallen within moments after the contractor had placed ice in an ice machine and before the contractor had completed his delivery. It did so because the ice had been delivered on a hot day and had been unloaded in an area that was not air conditioned and because the store owner had failed to police the delivery of ice or otherwise take adequate precautions to protect customers. Liability was imposed even though all the evidence was that the contractor, who had been making deliveries of *195ice for several years, had never before caused a slippery condition by allowing water on the floor.
The evidence in the instant case presents a stronger case of negligence by the store owner than in Miller. Here, there was evidence that the store had been aware that dirt, debris, and produce regularly fell to the floor in the produce area of the market so as to require that personnel frequently attend to the area in order to keep the floor clean. Although the plaintiff was uncertain about what had caused her to fall, she initially believed it to be produce, and a store employee identified the produce as grapes. Her fall occurred while the produce department was unattended.
The majority has declined to consider the applicability of Section 344 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts because its applicability was not discussed by appellant. Although appellant has not referred specifically to Section 344 of the Restatement or the decision in Miller v. Peter J. Schmitt & Co., Inc., supra, her argument is clearly premised upon the storekeeper’s duty to police his premises.1 Indeed, it is this duty to police the premises which has causéd our colleague, Judge Olszewski, to write also in dissent. He, however, would rely upon language appearing in a Superior Court decision in Moultrey v. Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, 281 Pa.Super. 525, 422 A.2d 593 (1980). I am satisfied, therefore, that it is the duty of a storekeeper to police his premises which is at the heart of the dispute in this case and that Section 344 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts speaks to that issue.
*196Moreover and in any event, it is the duty of this reviewing court to examine the entire record and determine whether the facts there appearing will support a recovery under any theory, whether or not that theory has been argued by the plaintiff-appellant. In making this determination, a court examines the record in a manner similar to the manner in which a court reviews the pleadings when faced with a motion for judgment on the pleadings or preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer to the complaint. With respect to the latter, the Superior Court has said,
... a plaintiff is not obliged to state the legal theory or theories underlying his complaint. Pa.R.C.P. 1019(a) requires only allegations of the “material facts on which a cause of action ... is based.” Assertions of legal rights and obligations in a complaint may be construed as conclusions of law, which have no place in a pleading and need not be denied in preliminary objections. GoodrichAmram 2d, Standard Pennsylvania Practice § 1019(a): 12 (collecting cases). This system of fact pleading may sometimes cause both the court and the defendant uncertainty as to the legal grounds of the complaint. Here, for example, the trial court discerned only one possible cause of action, that of fraud and deceit. The complaint, however, stated at least one other cause of action. The obligation to discover the cause or causes of actions is on the court: the plaintiff need not identify them. See Schreiber v. Republic Intermodal Corp., 473 Pa. 614, 375 A.2d 1285 (1977).
McClellan v. Health Maintenance Organization of Pennsylvania, 413 Pa.Super. 128, -, 604 A.2d 1053, 1059-60 (1992), quoting DelConte v. Stefonick, 268 Pa.Super. 572, 577, 408 A.2d 1151, 1153 (1979) (emphasis added). In the case of a motion for summary judgment, it is the court which must determine whether, on the facts appearing of record, there is any legal theory under which the plaintiff can recover.
In considering a motion for summary judgment, a court “must examine the whole record, including the pleadings, *197any depositions, any answers to interrogatories, admissions of record, if any, and any affidavits filed by the parties. From this thorough examination the ... court will determine the question of whether there is a genuine issue as to any material fact. On this critical question, the party who brought the motion ha[s] the burden of proving that no genuine issue of fact exists. All doubts as to the existence of a genuine issue of a material fact are to be resolved against the granting of summary judgment.” Penn Center House, Inc. v. Hoffman, 520 Pa. 171, 176, 553 A.2d 900, 903 (1989). In the instant case, this burden was on the defendant-appellee. A summary judgment would have been proper only if it appeared from the record that the material facts were not disputed and that the plaintiff-appellant was not entitled to recover under any theory of law applicable to the facts appearing of record. Because in this case there is a dispute about whether the storekeeper breached a duty to police the produce department of his store, the entry of summary judgment, in my judgment, was inappropriate. Therefore, I would reverse and remand for further proceedings.

. The issues are framed in appellant’s statement of questions as follows:
1. Did the lower Court err by restrictively reading the factual record to ignore facts showing that (a) the defendant’s own employees had a hand in creating the dangerous condition of the floor; [and] (b) the floor in the particular area of the supermarket where the plaintiff fell was constantly littered with debris and required "full-time” attention to keep it clean____
2. Did the lower Court err by failing to recognize that "notice" of a dangerous condition may be inferred (or satisfied), from a factual showing that the defendant knew that the particular condition was constant, recurring, and needed "full-time” attention?