Court Opinion

ID: 9689087
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:19:05.527764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:44.419927
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent on the ground that the evidence either on its direct elements or in its reasonable implications contains room for fair legal doubt as to whether the status of the plaintiff was that of a licensee or an invitee, and that the question was, therefore, one of fact for the jury.
The majority opinion relies upon the elements of the “economic benefit” test to determine whether plaintiff was an invitee or a licensee. Retatement, Torts 2d, in §§ 330 and 332, pp. 172 and 176, has changed is former position on that issue. Section 332 now reads: “(1) An invitee is either a public invitee or a business visitor. (2) A public invitee is a person who is invited to enter or remain on land as a member of the public for a purpose for which the land is held open to the public. (3) A business visitor is a person who' is invited to enter or remain on land for a purpose directly or indirectly connected with business dealings with the possessor of the land.” To the same effect, see, also, Prosser on Torts (2d Ed.), § 78, p. 452.
There was evidence here that: “* * * we have a thous- and people go back there to our restrooms a month.” There was also evidence that the plaintiff had been in the back room to get boxes before; that she had used the back door entrance before; that the public used it on occasion; and there was also evidence that the passageway to the rest room was the area where the plaintiff fell.
A case directly in point, although not cited in the briefs, is Bullock v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 236 F. 2d 29 *846(8th Circuit 1956). That case also involved a store customer directed to a back storeroom to obtain a carton for which there was no charge. That case held that: “* * * the court could not properly on the evidence as it stood, declare as a matter of law that defendant did not intend to extend to plaintiff an invitation to enter the back room, but only to make an offer to him of permission to enter the room at his own risk, or that defendant had given plaintiff no reason to believe, and plaintiff had no right to believe, that he would be entering the room as part of and under the protection of his business-visitor status.”
A portion of the comment on section 332, Restatement, Torts 2d, p. 183, states: “Since the status of the visitor as an invitee may depend upon whether the possessor should have known that the visitor would be led to believe that a particular part of the premises is held open to him, the question is often one of fact for the jury, subject to the normal control which the court exercises over the jury’s function in such matters.” See, also, Annotation, “Economic benefit” or “public invitation” as test of licensee-invitee status. 95 A. L. R. 2d 992.
Smith, J., concurs in dissent.