Court Opinion

ID: 9731812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:58:58.353424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:21.372776
License: Public Domain

WUEST, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially).
I agree the case should be reversed, however, I would reverse upon a different legal theory than the majority. I would simply reject the arbitrary classification of “trespasser,” “invitee,” and “licensee.” These classifications have descended from the feudal system wherein the courts of that era protected the landowners. These ancient decisions have no place in modern society. The attractive nuisance doctrine was a judicial innovation to circumvent those harsh rules in specified situations involving children. A decision holding that a horse is an artificial condition is stretching the rule to avoid an unjust result. Other courts have refused to hold that an animal constitutes an artificial condition. Hall v. Edlefson, 498 S.W.2d 514 (Tex.Civ.App.1973); Gonzales v. Wilkinson, 68 Wis.2d 154, 227 N.W.2d 907 (1975). There have been few decisions upon the subject. 64 A.L.R.3d 1069. One of the reasons being the growing tendency on the part of modern courts generally to eliminate or denigrate the trespasser-licensee-invitee distinction. See, 64 A.L.R.3d 1069, 1070, n. 10.
In its decision abolishing common-law classifications of trespasser, licensee, and invitee, the Alaska Supreme Court said in Webb v. City and Borough of Sitka, 561 P.2d 731, 732 (Alaska 1977): “[W]e have reached the conclusion that the subtleties and refinements of the rigid common law classifications of trespassers, licensees and invitees adds confusion to the law and is no longer desirable in modern times.” The common law is not a rigid and arbitrary code, crystallized and immutable. Rather, it is flexible and adapts itself to changing conditions. It is an accumulation of expres*338sions of the various judicial tribunals in their efforts to ascertain what is right and just between individuals with respect to private disputes. What may be considered a just disposition of a dispute at one stage of history may not be at another stage, considering changing social, economic and other conditions of society. The principle of stare decisis was not meant to keep a stranglehold on developments which are responsive to new values, experiences and circumstances. Webb v. City and Borough of Sitka, supra.
The first significant case eradicating entrant “status” as a factor in determining the landowner’s liability was Kermarec v. Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 79 S.Ct. 406, 3 L.Ed.2d 550 (1959), where the United States Supreme Court refused to extend the concept of entrant status to admiralty laws. In 1968, the California Supreme Court in Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal.2d 108, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561 (1968), 32 A.L.R.3d 496, relying on a section of their Civil Code, rejected entrant distinctions on the following reasoning:
In refusing to adopt the rules relating to the liability of a possessor of land for the law of admiralty, the United States Supreme Court stated: The distinctions which the common law draws between licensee and invitee were inherited from a culture deeply rooted to the land, a culture which traced many of its standards to a heritage of feudalism. In an effort to do justice in an industrialized urban society, with its complex economic and individual relationship, modern common-law courts have found it necessary to formulate increasingly subtle verbal refinements, to create subclassifications among traditional common-law categories, and to delineate fine gradations in the standards of care which the landowner owes to each. Yet, even within a single jurisdiction, the classifications and subclassifications bred by the common law have produced confusion and conflict. As new distinctions have been spawned, older ones have become obscured. Through this semantic morass the common law has moved, unevenly and with hesitation, towards “imposing on owners and occupiers a single duty of reasonable care in all of the circumstances.”
69 Cal.2d at 116, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 102, 443 P.2d at 566.
A man’s life or limb does not become less worthy of protection by the law nor a loss less worthy of compensation under the law because he has come upon the land of another without permission or with permission but without a business purpose. Reasonable people do not ordinarily vary their conduct depending upon such matters, and to focus upon the status of the injured party as a trespasser, licensee, or invitee in order to determine the question whether the landowner has a duty of care, is contrary to our modern social mores and humanitarian values. The common law rules obscure rather than illuminate the proper considerations which should govern determination of the question of duty.
It bears repetition that the basic policy of this state set forth by the Legislature in section 1714 of the Civil Code is that everyone is responsible for an injury caused to another by his want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his property. The factors which may in particular cases warrant departure from this fundamental principle do not warrant the wholesale immunities resulting from the common law classifications, and we are satisfied that continued adherence to the common law distinctions can only lead to injustice or, if we are to avoid injustice, further fictions with the resulting complexity and confusion. We decline to follow and perpetuate such rigid classifications. The proper test to be applied to the liability of the possessor of land in accordance with section 1714 of the Civil Code is whether in the management of his property he has acted as a reasonable man in view of the probability of injury to others, and, although the plaintiff’s status as a trespasser, licensee, or invitee may in the light of the facts giving rise to such status have some bearing on the question of liability, the status is not determinative.
*33969 Cal.2d at 118, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 104, 443 P.2d at 568.
Since the decision of Rowland, the following states have shown by these decisions their joining of the continually growing group which reject land entrant “status” in whole or in part. These states have totally rejected common law status: Smith v. Arbaugh’s Restaurant, Inc., 469 F.2d 97 (D.C.Cir.1972); Webb v. City and Borough of Sitka, supra; Rowland v. Christian, supra; Mile High Fence Company v. Radovich, 175 Colo. 537, 489 P.2d 308 (1971); Pickard v. City and County of Honolulu, 51 Haw. 134, 452 P.2d 445 (1969); Shelton v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Company, 334 So.2d 406 (La.1976); Peterson v. Balach, 294 Minn. 161, 199 N.W.2d 639 (1972); Cunningham v. Hayes, 463 S.W.2d 555 (Mo.1971); Ouellette v. Blanchard, 116 N.H. 552, 364 A.2d 631 (1976); Scurti v. City of New York, 40 N.Y.2d 433, 387 N.Y.S.2d 55, 354 N.E.2d 794 (1976); Mariorenzi v. Joseph DiPonte, Inc., 114 R.I. 294, 333 A.2d 127 (1975); and 32 A.L.R.3d 496.
In addition to these states, Massachusetts and Wisconsin have rejected the distinction between “licensees” and “invitees.” See: Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693, 297 N.E.2d 43 (1973), and Antoniewicz v. Reszcynski, 70 Wis.2d 836, 236 N.W.2d 1 (1975). In 1977, our sister state of North Dakota followed suit, O’Leary v. Coenen, 251 N.W.2d 746 (N.D.1977). The states which have followed Rowland v. Christian, supra, have done so because it is sound legal policy. South Dakota has a further and very interesting reason for following Rowland v. Christian, supra, because that decision could be seen as an authoritative and original interpretation of our own statute.
Section 1714 of the California Civil Code, which the court relied on, is the identical section as 979 of the Civil Code of Dakota Territory of 1877, which passed unchanged into the Code of 1887 as § 3603, and from there to § 1297 of the Civil Code of 1903. From there it passed into the Revised Code of 1919, unchanged. The words of the statute remained unchanged until the 1939 re-codification of the South Dakota Code, at that time the language was somewhat changed in recodification, to the present language of SDCL 20-9-1, which reads, in pertinent part:
Every person is responsible for injury to the person, property, or rights of another caused by his willful acts or caused by his want of ordinary care or skill, subject in the latter cases to the defense of contributory negligence.
Contrast this to the original version which reads, in pertinent part:
Every one is responsible, not only for the result of his wilful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his property or person, except so far as the latter has, wilfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury on himself.
There is no evidence of any intentional change in the law by legislative enactment. While SDC 65.0202(1) of 1939 treats the recodification as a repeal and reenactment, there is no evidence of any intent to alter the meaning of the section.
I would hold that an entrant’s “status” as a trespasser, licensee, or invitee is no longer controlling but is only one element among many to be considered in determining the landowner’s (or party responsible for the particular condition of the premises) liability under ordinary standards of negligence, with the duty of the landowner (or party responsible for the particular condition of the premises) being no more or no less than that of any other alleged tort-feasor. He must conduct himself as a reasonable man, under the circumstances, on land which he controls as well as in other places. Except in those cases where reasonable minds could not differ, whether he has done so, or not, is always a question for the finder of fact. Mile High Fence Company v. Radovich, 28 Colo.App. 400, 474 P.2d 796 (1970).