Court Opinion

ID: 9682491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:11:58.271661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:39.665944
License: Public Domain

SPEARS, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the court, but I would not hinge the duty owed to R.M.V. only on the ordinance. In my view Mr. Property’s duty to R.M.V. should not depend solely on the existence of an ordinance or the location of the apartments within city limits.
I would be willing to carve an exception to the traditional premises liability categories of invitee, licensee, and trespasser because the categories should not be applied rigidly. Although R.M.V. entered the Chalmette apartment complex without Mr. Property’s consent or knowledge, it would be manifestly unjust to classify her as a trespasser when she was dragged onto the property by a rapist. I would hold that Mr. Property must act as a reasonable prudent person in maintaining its property in a reasonably safe condition in view of all the circumstances, including the likelihood of injury to others, the seriousness of the injury, and the burden on the respective parties of avoiding the risk. By establishing a duty under these circumstances, Mr. Property would not be an insurer of its property or have to face unreasonable burdens in maintaining its property.
I am not ready to discard the traditional categories of invitee, licensee, and trespasser because they allow judicial certainty and predictable allocations of liability in most cases. Adoption of an across-the-board standard of reasonable care under the circumstances would replace a stable and established system of loss allocation with confusion and possibly inconsistent and unpredictable rules of law. I am not sure that juries can be expected to reconcile the multitude of social policies implicit in the assessment of premises liability. Without the guidance of the categories, juries would be given a free hand to impose liability without reference to the social policies underlying the categories; and, if the jury is to be instructed to consider the former categories, we gain little or nothing by jettisoning them. Gerchberg v. Loney, 223 Kan. 446, 576 P.2d 593, 597 (1978). I am not alone in this position. A clear majority of the states have refused to abandon the common-law status classifications of invitee, licensee, and trespasser. Annot., 22 A.L.R.4th 294 (1983).
The court has decided this case without creating a new exception to traditional premises liability categories or abandoning them in favor of a reasonable care under the circumstances .test. By hinging the duty owed to R.M.V. on the ordinance, the court has not foreclosed either an exception to or abandonment of the traditional categories in the future. I would retain the categories until we can evaluate the ramifications of adopting the single standard of care in light of the results experienced by states which have adopted such a standard.