Court Opinion

ID: 9583039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:34:14.714025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:06.246588
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring specially).
To understand this case, the reader must appreciate the majority and minority opinions in Mortenson v. Braley, 349 N.W.2d 444 (S.D.1984).
In Mortenson, a rubber anti-skid footpad was missing from the ladder. It could have reasonably been inspected. Here, however, there was a foot of dirt covering the well and it could not reasonably have been inspected. Therefore, I concur in the decision of this Court, but hue to the thought content in my dissent in Mortenson, 349 N.W.2d at 446. Stenholtz v. Modica, 264 N.W.2d 514 (S.D.1978), should be expanded as I explained in my dissent in Mortenson. Certainly, it is reasonable that an owner of land should reasonably inspect his property for safety when he invites the public onto his land to do business with them. Especially is this so, where he harbors a dangerous condition. Law springs from reasoning. Reasoning springs from a sense of what is right or wrong.
It is not reasonable for an owner or possessor of land to invite somebody onto his property and escape all liability, when, but for a reasonable inspection, he could discover a dangerous condition and thereby avoid injury to an invitee. Again, as I did in Mortenson, 349 N.W.2d at 446, I cite Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343 (1965):
A possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm caused to his invitees by a condition on the land if, but only if, he
(a) knows or by the exercise of reasonable care would discover the condition, and should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to such invitees, and
(b) should expect that they will not discover or realize the danger, or will fail to protect themselves against it, and
(c) fails to exercise reasonable care to protect them against the danger.