Court Opinion

ID: 9535229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:47:03.783961+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:11.877419
License: Public Domain

*129SCHUDSON, J.
(dissenting). Like the parties, the trial court, and the majority, I accept for purposes of the summary judgment analysis of this case, that Kheirieh ordered remodeling of the store and, in the process, deactivated or authorized the deactivation of the alarm system.1 Given that factual premise, I disagree with the majority's conclusion.
Although Naaj's claims seem tenuous and might ultimately prove unconvincing to a jury, we must remember that the trial court dismissed his action at the summary judgment stage. The majority now upholds that dismissal based on two erroneous legal conclusions constructed on two cornerstones: 1) the distinction between the structural safety of a building and the employment safety of an employee in the building; and 2) the distinction between the safe place statute liability of an owner and of an employer. Both legal distinctions exist, but both crumble in this case.
*130The majority relies on Holcomb v. Szymczyk, 186 Wis. 99, 202 N.W. 188 (1925), for the proposition that "a building is safe if the building 'is composed of proper materials and is structurally safe, and that the statute does not apply to temporary conditions having no relation to the structure of the building or the materials of which it is composed.' " Majority op. at 127-28 (quoting. Holcomb, 186 Wis. at 104, 202 N.W. at 191). Holcomb, however, dealt with safe place statute liability in the context of a landlord/tenant relationship which, the court explained, had no applicability to an employ er/employee relationship:
[TJhe relation of landlord and tenant in fact and in law is vastly different than the relation of employer and employ[ee]. The duties of a master to his servant do not remotely resemble the duties of a landlord to his tenant. The relationships are not even analogous and are derived from different sources in the law....
Holcomb, 186 Wis. at 102, 202 N.W. at 190. The distinction the majority attempts to draw — a distinction that, as a matter of law, would absolutely separate alarm systems and related safety devices from the structure of a building — further breaks down when we examine Jaeger v. Evangelical Lutheran Holy Ghost Congregation, 219 Wis. 209, 262 N.W. 585 (1935), another case on which the majority attempts to rely. See Majority op. at 126.
Jaeger involved the safe place statute claim of a woman who was injured by chairs falling from a "pile" of folding chairs as she was setting them up in a church. Id. at 210, 262 N.W. at 585. Concluding that the employer, not the owner, had safe place statute responsibility, the court explained:
*131The permitting of temporary conditions wholly dissociated from the structure does not constitute a violation of the safe-place statute by the owner of a building, although it may, and undoubtedly does, constitute a violation if permitted by an employer.
Id. at 212, 262 N.W. at 586. The folding chairs, of course, were not part of the church building. An electronic alarm system, however, might not be "wholly dissociated from the structure."
Still, as the majority explains, Naaj sued Kheirieh as an owner, not an employer. Therefore, under Jaeger, would not "[t]he permitting of [the] temporary conditions" — the deactivation of the'security system — result in Kheirieh's safe place liability only if he had been sued as an employer? Answering that question, the majority inexplicably ignores Prehn v. Niss & Sons, Inc., 233 Wis. 155, 288 N.W. 736 (1939), in which the supreme court declared:
In previous cases, this court has stated without deciding the question of whether one who is owner of a building and also is maintaining it as a place of employment is liable only for structural defects as owner or sustains the larger liability of an employer. The case at bar squarely presents this question and, having given it full consideration, we hold that a person in the situation above outlined sustains not merely the liability of an owner under the safe-place statute but also the larger liability of one conducting a place of employment. Hence, if there is a failure to comply with the requirements of the safe place statute, the mere fact that the injury is caused by a defect other than a structural defect would not of itself be sufficient to excuse from liability one who is both employer and owner.
*132Id. at 157, 288 N.W. at 737 (citations omitted; emphases added).
The instant case also "squarely presents this question." Naaj's complaint alleged that Kheirieh was the "owner of the building." Kheirieh's answer admitted not only that he was the owner of the building, but also that at the time of Naaj's injury, he was the sole owner of the corporation that owned Post Food & Liquor and employed Naaj. In his affidavit, Kheirieh stated, "I'm the same owner for the store and the building," and acknowledged his personal involvement in the purchasing, remodeling, and repairing of the building and store. See Williams v. International Oil Co., 267 Wis. 227, 231, 64 N.W.2d 817, 819 (1953), and Burmeister v. Damrow, 273 Wis. 568, 580-82, 79 N.W.2d 87, 94-95 (1956) (discussing owners' safe place statute liability and its relation to their knowledge of temporary conditions).
Thus, in this case, we are dealing with a security system that, at the very least, involves a building's electrical components that might not be "wholly dissociated from the structure," and we are dealing with an owner who also is an employer. Consistent with the supreme court's holding in Prehn, the safe place statute simply does not allow an owner/employer to carry out owner / employer authority for installation or activation of an alarm system, and then shed employer responsibility for its deactivation.
Therefore, I conclude that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment and, accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

 The record is unclear. It includes what appears to be only a portion of Kheirieh's affidavit. That portion has no discussion of any remodeling or deactivation of the alarm system. The record also includes what appears to be a repair order from a security system company, dated June 15,1994, for work on the VCR, cameras, and wiring at Post Food & Liquor.
The complaint offers two different allegations regarding Kheirieh's responsibility for any alarm deactivation. First, it states that, "as owner of the building," he "knew or should have known of the existing conditions of inadequate security devices and that existing security devices had been disabled, removed or moved to a locked office.. .." Later, it states that, "as owner and lessor of said property," Kheirieh "had caused and consented to the premises being in an unsafe condition because security systems, such as silent alarms and surveillance cameras . . . had been rendered ineffective by either being dismantled, deactivated, ignored, removed from the work area, or were lacking."