Court Opinion

ID: 9856024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:36:42.630096+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:55.519962
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
specially concurring:
I concur with the majority except that, in addition to the rationale supplied by Keller (a tenant’s employee will encounter a known unsafe condition in order to keep his or her job; therefore the landlord owes a duty of reasonable care to the tenant’s employee), I would add a discussion of Stephens v. Steams which bolsters the position we adopt today.
In Stephens v. Stearns, supra, we held that the measure of a landlord’s duty to its tenant is not determined under trespasser-licensee-invitee analysis, but rather, “A landlord must act as a reasonable person under all of the circumstances including the likelihood of injury to others, the probable seriousness of such injuries, and the burden of reducing or avoiding the risk.” Id., at 258, 678 P.2d at 50, quoting Sargent v. Ross, 113 N.H. 388, 308 A.2d 528, 534 (1973). The landlord’s duty to exercise reasonable care in light of all the circumstances extends to his or her tenant or anyone on the premises with the tenant’s consent. Pagelsdorf v. Safeco Ins. Co. of America, 91 Wis.2d 734, 284 N.W.2d 55, 61 (1979). The trial court’s reliance upon the traditional law pertaining to invitees was misplaced. The test is one of reasonableness under all the circumstances, not one of hidden or obvious dangers, or exceptions to the traditional general rule of non-liability for landlords. As we have said before, there is no justification for this general cloak of common law immunity for landlords. Stephens v. Stearns, supra. See also, Pagelsdorf, supra.
Furthermore, as to the finding below of a non-existence of questions of material fact, Stephens v. Stearns, which involved facts similar to those of the instant case, reached a contrary result:
[W]e do not believe that the jury would have had to rely on conjecture and speculation to find that the absence of the handrail was the actual cause [of plaintiff’s injuries]. To the contrary, we believe that reasonable jurors could have drawn legitimate inferences from the evidence presented to determine the issue. This comports with the general rule that the factual issue of causation is for the jury to decide. [Citations.] In addition, courts in several other jurisdictions, when faced with similar factual settings, have held that this issue is a question for the jury. [Citations.] Therefore, we hold that there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could have concluded that the absence of the handrail was the actual cause of plaintiff’s injuries.
106 Idaho at 253, 678 P.2d at 45.
I find the analysis in Stephens v. Stearns readily applicable to the facts at hand. There exists a genuine issue of material fact as to causation. Further, whether Butler breached her duty to Marcher involves a balance of the factors we quoted from Sargent, supra, and an examination of all the circumstances surrounding Marcher’s fall. Such is a question for triers of fact.
HUNTLEY, J., concurs.