Court Opinion

ID: 9513780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:40:31.765409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:02.125791
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
concurring in the result.
[¶ 31] I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion. In doing so, I do not join the expansive standard the majority appears to adopt under its “reasonableness test.” I agree that the “natural accumulation” standard which this Court cited with approval in Fast v. State, 2004 ND 111, 680 N.W.2d 265, as applied to municipal sidewalks, does not necessarily apply to municipal buildings, such as the Civic Center, owned by the City of Bismarck. One of the rationales for the municipal sidewalk standard is, as noted by the cite in the májority opinion to Kremer v. Carr’s Food Center, Inc., 462 P.2d 747 (Alaska 1969), the numerous miles of sidewalks in areas which receive considerable snowfall on a regular basis. Nevertheless, in Fast, we did observe that cases involving accidents on municipal sidewalks “are persuasive regarding the liability of a landowner, in this case the State, for injuries sustained as a result of snow and ice conditions.” Fast, at ¶ 11. Of course, in Fast the premises were also sidewalks owned not by the City, but by the State on a college campus.
*646[¶ 32] It is not clear to me whether the majority intends to overrule our previous cases such as Fast and the other North Dakota cases cited and relied upon therein and to reject the “natural accumulation rule” or whether it intends to carve out a different standard where stairs attached to a public building, not sidewalks, are concerned. If it is the latter, I concur in the result but my concurrence goes no further and does not signal my agreement with much of the authority relied upon by the majority. Nevertheless, I agree that stairs attached to a public building to which the public is invited to enter to attend some event, most times for a fee, are different from the miles of sidewalks for which the municipality or other owner might be responsible. There is, of course, authority to the contrary, some of it cited in the majority opinion, for example, Corey v. Davenport College of Business, 251 Mich.App. 1, 649 N.W.2d 392 (2002). But the Michigan courts rely heavily upon the “open and obvious danger” which, although it may be part of the rationale of our previous decisions, is not so heavily emphasized therein. In any event, I believe steps do create hazards not necessarily present on a flat sidewalk.
[¶ 33] To the extent the majority opinion holds under its “rule of reasonableness” that a municipality may be liable under certain circumstances for the condition of the stairs on a public building which the municipality expects to be heavily used, I concur in the result.
[¶ 34] CAROL RONNING KAPSNER, J., concurs.