Court Opinion

ID: 9856077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:37:32.705351+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:58.915361
License: Public Domain

CLABORNE, Presiding Judge,
specially concurring.
I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the danger posed to the Bellezzos was not unreasonable. I also agree with the majority’s conclusion concerning the legal duty that Arizona owed to Mrs. Bellezzo. Clearly, a landowner owes a duty to one he invites on his premises, and that duty is to use reasonable care to keep those premises safe for the use of the person invited. Tribe v. Shell Oil Co., 133 Ariz. 517, 519, 652 P.2d 1040, 1042 (1982). Yet, I also agree with the position of others that to divide guests into invitees, licensees, or trespassers is to perpetuate artificial classi*555fication. See Shaw v. Petersen, 169 Ariz. 559, 563-68, 821 P.2d 220, 224-26 (1991) (Fidel, C.J., specially concurring.) The duty in this case, as with most other negligence cases, remains constant and the real question is whether the standard of conduct required by that duty was breached. Coburn v. City of Tucson, 143 Ariz. 50, 691 P.2d 1078. However, the majority’s repetitive emphasis on the “open and obvious” nature of the danger risks reviving an often-abused basis for summary judgment. The issue here is whether summary judgment was appropriate.
The majority jumped into a thicket which is simply unwarranted. Our supreme court has repeatedly cautioned, in a variety of contexts, that the openness of a condition is only one factor in deciding whether the condition is unreasonably dangerous and that the question must usually be left for the jury to decide. See, e.g., Markowitz, 146 Ariz. at 356, 706 P.2d at 368; Cummings v. Prater, 95 Ariz. 20, 27, 386 P.2d 27, 31 (1963); Byrns v. Riddell, Inc., 113 Ariz. 264, 267, 550 P.2d 1065, 1068 (1976). See also Turner v. Machine Ice Co., 138 Ariz. 329, 333, 674 P.2d 883, 887 (App. 1983); Murphy v. El Dorado Bowl, Inc., 2 Ariz.App. 341, 343, 409 P.2d 57, 59 (1965). In determining whether a landlord breached his duly of reasonable care, we ask whether reasonable precautions were taken to prevent injury, not whether the danger which existed was open and obvious. Not only has Arizona said time and time again that an open and obvious danger is a fact question not to be decided by a judge, but also that because a condition is open and obvious does not necessarily mean that it is unreasonably dangerous. Smedberg v. Simons, 129 Ariz. 375, 378, 631 P.2d 530, 533 (1981); Beach v. City of Phoenix, 136 Ariz. 601, 667 P.2d 1316 (1983); Tribe v. Shell Oil Co., 133 Ariz. at 519, 652 P.2d at 1042; Coburn, 143 Ariz. 50, 691 P.2d 1078; Johnson v. Tucson Estates, Inc., 140 Ariz. 531, 683 P.2d 330 (App.1984); Yuma Furniture Co. v. Rehwinkel, 8 Ariz.App. 576, 448 P.2d 420 (1968). Examination does not end with the observation that a danger was open and obvious. Rather, the examination shifts to such questions as magnitude of risk of harm, foreseeability that the danger will be overlooked or not discovered, and cost and feasibility of a cure.
Cardozo was right when he said in Pokora v. Wabash Ry. Co., 292 U.S. 98, 54 S.Ct. 580, 78 L.Ed. 1149 (1934), that one must use caution in framing standards of behavior into rules of law.
Here, as the majority points out, baseball spectators need no warning that foul balls may fly where there is no screen. But in this, as in other “open and obvious” cases, openness of risk is merely the starting point. In this case the defendants did not withhold protection against the risk; an adequate number of screened seats was available for those who wanted such protection. The true issue of this case is, therefore, whether the defendants subjected spectators to an unreasonable danger by permitting them to choose an unscreened seat.8 I join the majority in concluding that the evidence was insufficient. I would uphold summary judgment not because the danger was open and obvious, but because the defendants took reasonable measures to meet the danger under the circumstances.
My difference with the majority is merely one of emphasis, but for historical reasons I think the difference is important. Too many inappropriate summary judgments have been granted on “open and obvious” grounds for us to risk reviving the “open and obvious” rule. The question, we should always remind ourselves, is not obviousness of danger but reasonable care under the circumstances.
The proprietor of a ball park, by adequately screening the area behind home plate where the danger of being hit by a foul ball is the greatest and providing adequate protection for as many spectators as may be reasonably expected to desire seating, fulfills the duty required of the propri*556etor. Akins v. Glens Falls City School Dist., 53 N.Y.2d 325, 441 N.Y.S.2d 644, 424 N.E.2d 531 (1981), reargument denied 54 N.Y.2d 831, 443 N.Y.S.2d 1031, 427 N.E.2d 1192 (1981).
The size of the stadium, the size of the backstop, the highly equivocal evidence that Bellezzo was forced to sit in the un-screened area, the lack of a record concerning where most foul balls are hit, the lack of testimony concerning whether the protected area satisfied the expected requests for such seating justified the finding by the trial court.

. The evidence was so highly equivocal concerning whether Bellezzo was forced to sit in an unscreened area that it does not present a material fact issue which would preclude summary judgment. Orme School v. Reeves, 166 Ariz. 301, 309, 802 P.2d 1000, 1008 (1990).