Court Opinion

ID: 9553678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:33:23.98947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:32:04.252252
License: Public Domain

GERBER, Judge,
specially concurring.
I write specially because my position falls between that of Judges Brooks and Jacobson but is closer to that of Judge Brooks.
In the first place, this is a case about duty to protect from a danger (traffic) outside the leased premises. In that respect, it is a case of first impression in Arizona. We ought to acknowledge that. Secondly, *17we ought to acknowledge that the major Arizona cases cited — Markowitz, Cummings, and Bach — deal with liability for on premises dangers. True, their duty language is broad and non-geographical, but none of these cases is automatic authority for the existence of a duty regarding dangers outside the leased premises.
To begin the analysis it is essential to first distinguish the existence of a legal duty from the existence of the ready remedy, the fence. Focusing first on the fence and the ease with which it could have prevented this tragic injury begs the question. The threshold question is whether there was any duty of care in the first place. If that question is answered in the negative, the fencing issue need not be raised.
The question of duty is one of law to be decided by the court, Markowitz v. Arizona Parks Board, 146 Ariz. 352, 354, 706 P.2d 364-366 (1985). In discussing duty, that court stated:
[T]he question is whether the relationship of the parties was such that the defendant was under an obligation to use some care to avoid or prevent injury to the plaintiff. If the answer is no, the defendant is not liable even though he may have acted negligently in light of the foreseeable risks.

Id.

The relationship question precedes the remedy question. Coburn v. City of Tucson, 143 Ariz. 50, 691 P.2d 1078 (1984) points up the problem in approaching this case initially in terms of the contractual provision dealing with fencing:
[T]he problems of “duty” are sufficiently complex without subdividing it ... to cover an endless series of details of conduct. It is better to reserve “duty” for the problem of the relation between individuals which imposes upon one a legal obligation for the benefit of the other, and to deal with particular conduct in terms of a legal standard of what is required to meet the obligation. In other words, “duty” is a question whether the defendant is under any obligation for the benefit of the particular plaintiff; and in negligence cases the “duty” [if it exists] is always the same — to conform to the legal standard of reasonable conduct in the light of the apparent risk. What the defendant must do, or must not do, is a question of the standard of conduct required to satisfy the duty____
143 Ariz. at 52, 691 P.2d at 1080, quoting W. Prosser and W. Keeton, Law of Torts § 53 at 356 (5th ed. 1984). The focus of analysis must initially be not on the remedy but on the relationship between the parties.
With these principles in mind, and particularly in view of the Cummings language cited by Judge Brooks, I conclude that Arizona law imposes a duty of care on a landlord with respect to his tenants, and that that duty is not a priori limited by property boundaries but, instead, is defined by the legal and factual relationship between the individual landlord and tenant. That the traffic danger here lies just outside the leased premises is irrelevant to this threshold determination. Here there are two unique things about the relationship between this landlord and these tenants: First, one of the tenants, Georgie, was a small child1 not able to protect himself as an adult. Secondly, unlike many other leases, the landlord here retained to himself the power to erect a fence. These two aspects of the relationship between the parties define the landlord’s duty of care in this situation to embrace (among other duties) a duty to care for a minor tenant denied the protection of a fence. This conclusion does not mean that the landlord had *18a duty to erect a fence; it means that the landlord had a duty to protect a minor tenant denied the protection of a fence. The existence of this duty of care derives from the relationship between the individual parties, not from considerations of traffic or geography.
The fact that one of the tenants, Georgie, is a small child refines the duty of care with particularity. The characteristics of children are proper matters for consideration in determining what is ordinary care with respect to them, and there may be a duty to take precautions with respect to those of tender years which would hot be necessary in the case of adults. The landlord’s duty is to exercise such care as a reasonably prudent person would exercise toward children under like circumstances. Shannon v. Butler Homes, Inc., 102 Ariz. 312, 317, 428 P.2d 990, 995 (1967).
Once the landlord’s duty is found and described, the next question becomes its scope, i.e. the foreseeability of injury. Elaborating on how foreseeability fits into the duty analysis, this court has previously stated:
This issue is to be presented to the jury, however, where there is a debatable question as to whether the injury to the plaintiff was within the foreseeable scope of the risk and whether the defendant was required to recognize the risk and take precautions against it.
Schnyder v. Empire Metals, Inc., 136 Ariz. 428, 431, 666 P.2d 528, 531 (App.1983).
Foreseeability of injury turns on factual and contractual provisions dealing, among other things, with fencing, because fencing, among other matters, determines the likelihood of injury. The parties defendant have stipulated that the absence of a fence was the proximate cause of the injury. Taking this concession at its face value means that the foreseeability of injury becomes much greater by the absence of a fence, particularly where the tenants’ use of the leasehold is restricted by the landlord’s retention of exclusive authority over fencing. As in the Limberhand case cited in Judge Brooks’ opinion, the landlord, not the tenant, thereby retains the power to control to some extent the off-premises danger. While there is nothing contractually defective about this reservation of fencing authority to the landlord, the landlord’s duty of care requires him to exercise his fencing decisions as a reasonably prudent person would do in a relationship between these same parties in the same situation.
Defendant urges two objections to this analysis: first, the duty to care for Georgie resides in the parents, not the landlord, and second, the open and obvious character of the traffic danger precludes any liability to the landlord.
As to the first, the existence of a parent-child relationship does not negate but merely complements the landlord-tenant relationship. The mere fact that a child resides with parents does not relieve a landlord from the duty of care described above, primarily because the landlord, not the parents, has the more direct control over the lease.
As to the second objection, whether the unfenced yard and adjacent traffic constitute an open and obvious condition is inappropriate to resolve as a matter of law. While a patently open and obvious condition may justify summary judgment in an undebatable case, e.g., Robles v. Severyn, 19 Ariz.App. 61, 504 P.2d 1284 (1973), the question here is not whether the condition and its dangerousness were open and obvious to plaintiff’s parent, but to the minor tenant, Georgie. As Cummings v. Prater stated:
The open and obvious condition is merely a factor to be taken into consideration in determining whether the condition was unreasonably dangerous.
95 Ariz. at 27, 386 P.2d at 31. A parallel factual situation arose in Schultz v. Eslick, 788 F.2d 558 (9th Cir.1986). In Schultz, a three-year-old child in a leased residence suffered severe injuries when she fell into an unfenced pool. Construing Arizona law, the court noted the nature of a landlord's duty as set forth in Cummings, and further held that the open and obvious nature of the dangerous aspects of a swimming pool would not automatically relieve a landlord of liability to the child. That court stated:
*19No Arizona decision appears to have decided whether an unfenced residential pool is unreasonably dangerous to a three-year-old child as a matter of law. We believe that the liability question should be sent to an Arizona jury because reasonable minds could differ on whether the unfenced pool was unreasonably dangerous to small children.
Id. at 559-60. The court also pointed out that the proper inquiry was whether the landlords satisfied their duty of care to the three-year-old plaintiff, not to her parents. The character or age of the victim must be considered in determining whether the open and obvious danger terminates the duty of care.
In sum, the determination of the duty here is a question of law flowing from the relationship of this lessor and these lessees, in particular a minor tenant unable to protect himself as an adult. The decision to fence or not to fence flowing from the contractual provisions in the lease is to be measured by a jury on a “reasonably prudent person” standard where the reasonably prudent person faces the same circumstances, same parties, and the same relationship of care as existed here. Accordingly, I agree that the summary judgment must be reversed and this matter resolved by a jury.

. At least two Arizona cases involving child plaintiffs have based their analyses on the duty owned by a landlord to a child tenant. In Presson v. Mountain States Properties, Inc., the plaintiff was a nine-year-old who was burned by a faulty water heater. 18 Ariz.App. at 177, 501 P.2d at 18. This court held that the landlord owed the child the duty previously set forth in Cummings. Id. at 178-79, 501 P.2d at 19-20. No distinction was made between the duty owed her, as opposed to the duty owed her father, the signator on the lease. Id. Similarly, the injured twelve-year-old plaintiff in McFarland v. Kahn was owed the same duty as that owed a tenant. 123 Ariz. 62-63, 597 P.2d 544-45. The landlord’s duty, then, is to exercise such care as a reasonably prudent person would exercise toward tenant children under similar circumstances.