Court Opinion

ID: 9476367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:54:14.490146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:16.810143
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
George Allison was injured on March 7, 1984 as he made his first round after he reported for work. He was only twelve or fourteen feet from a required key stop, riding on a bicycle, when he struck a wire stretched across an aisleway. He testified that Nottingham, the man he relieved at 11:30 p.m., would have made four rounds of the same area during the earlier shift and that if the wire had been there he would have seen it. The wire thus had to be placed there after Nottingham made his fourth round and before Allison made his first. Any guard that saw it would had to have done something about it because it was an obvious safety hazard.
Jimmie Townsend, Allison’s first witness, testified that he ran into a wire in the Cooper warehouse sometime in 1979. Allison’s wife stated that one of the Cooper employees told her that similar incidents had occurred twice before. There was testimony that such an incident had occurred approximately a year before Allison’s injury and was known by the Southern Research supervisor but not reported to Cooper.
The court correctly states the rule from Magnolia Petroleum. In Arkansas, an owner or occupant of premises, not in a defective or dangerous condition, is not liable for the tortious acts of third parties which were unauthorized, or which he had no reason to anticipate and of which he had no knowledge. Magnolia Petroleum, 202 Ark. at 386, 150 S.W.2d at 222; see also Leonard v. Standard Lumber Co., 196 Ark. 800, 802, 120 S.W.2d 5, 7 (1938). The court recognizes that the wire across the aisle was unauthorized and served no purpose of Cooper. It had to have been put in place after the last round of the security employee working the shift immediately before Allison. There is no evidence any Cooper employee knew of its presence. A detailed investigation by Cooper and the local police failed to discover any evidence as to who was responsible for placing it there. I cannot conclude from this evidence that the rare unauthorized incidents occurring over a four-year span are sufficient basis for reasonable jurors to conclude that Cooper had reason to anticipate that this type of activity would occur again. I believe that a directed verdict should be entered in favor of Cooper.