Court Opinion

ID: 9793453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:48:11.096944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:05:08.854255
License: Public Domain

GOLDEN, J.,
dissenting, with whom THOMAS, J., joins.
I respectfully dissent. It is undisputed that Conquistador had not physically acted upon the week-old natural accumulation of snow and ice upon which Mrs. Selby slipped and fell. In my view, a natural accumulation of snow and ice remains a natural hazard unless the owner or occupier of the premises physically acts upon it so as to aggravate the naturally existing hazard, i.e., making the snow and ice substantially more dangerous than it was in its physically untouched natural state. Delving into whether Conquistador’s placement of a dumpster in relation to a parking space created a shadow depending on the location of the sun at any given time of the - day and depending on the presence or absence of cloud cover surely must be the slipperiest slope of all in this area of premis*497es liability jurisprudence. A determination whether the location of the dumpster in relation to a parked car created shade which in turn aggravated the naturally existing hazard has no relation to whether the accumulation is natural or artificial; instead, it has relation only to whether Conquistador acted reasonably when it placed the dumpster in close proximity to a parking space. To put the determination as the majority has is to abrogate the natural accumulation rule and replace it with a duty-of-reasonable-care rule.