Johnson v. Dale C. & Helen W. Johnson Family Revocable Trust

Decision Date24 March 2015
Docket NumberNo. S–14–0182.,S–14–0182.
Citation345 P.3d 883,2015 WY 42
PartiesSteven A. JOHNSON and Karen Johnson, Husband and Wife, Appellants (Plaintiffs), v. DALE C. AND HELEN W. JOHNSON FAMILY REVOCABLE TRUST, Ballard W. Johnson as Co–Trustee, Arthur W. Johnson and Steven A. Johnson as Successor Co–Trustees, Appellees (Defendants).
CourtWyoming Supreme Court

Representing Appellants: Michael D. Allen and James K. Sanderson of Sanderson Law Office, Afton, Wyoming. Argument by Mr. Allen.

Representing Appellees: John D. Bowers and Spencer L. Allred of Bowers Law Firm, PC, Afton, Wyoming. Argument by Mr. Bowers.

Before BURKE, C.J., and HILL, KITE, DAVIS, and FOX, JJ.

Opinion

DAVIS, Justice.

[¶ 1] This appeal arises out of a dispute between Steven and Karen Johnson, Appellants, and the Dale C. and Helen W. Johnson Family Revocable Trust, Ballard W. Johnson, as co-trustee, and Arthur W. Johnson, as successor co-trustee (the Trust), Appellees. It concerns injuries sustained by Steven Johnson when he fell off a haystack while helping his 82–year–old father feed cattle on property owned by the Trust. The Trust moved for summary judgment, claiming that Appellants' negligence action could not survive as a matter of law because the Trust owed no duty to them and that there was no evidence that any duty was breached. The district court granted summary judgment, holding that the Trust owed Steven Johnson no duty of care. We find that even if the Trust owed Steven Johnson the duty to exercise reasonable care, the negligence claim cannot survive because Appellants produced no evidence of a breach of that duty. We therefore affirm.

ISSUE

[¶ 2] The issue presented by Steven and Karen Johnson is whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment.

FACTS

[¶ 3] On March 23, 2010, the day he was injured, Steven Johnson (Mr. Johnson) went to the ranch property owned by the Dale C. and Helen W. Johnson Family Trust to help his 82–year–old father, Dale, feed cattle. Mr. Johnson was raised on the ranch and grew up helping his father with ranching operations, including feeding cattle. He continued to help out on the ranch after he became an adult and started his own construction business. He was fifty-seven years old on the date of the accident, and so he had decades of experience by that time.

[¶ 4] He testified that the family had used the same method of feeding that he used on the date of the accident since the early 1980s. They customarily loaded hay from a stack of bales onto a sleigh, which would then be used to transport the hay to the cattle.

[¶ 5] On the day he was injured, Mr. Johnson first harnessed the team of horses and “hooked them up” to the sleigh. Because his father Dale had trouble walking, Dale drove his four wheeler from the house to the sleigh and then got on to drive the team to the hay so that it could be loaded. The sleigh was approximately eight feet wide and sixteen feet long, and it had been used on the ranch for as long as Mr. Johnson could remember.

[¶ 6] After the sleigh was parked next to the hay bales, the person loading them would pull the string on one bale in the stack in an effort to cause several bales to fall down onto the sleigh at once. Bales would be removed from the stack by working from the top down, removing the higher layers first. After the bales at the front of the stack were removed, the person loading had to climb onto bales in the remaining lower layers to reach the bales in the higher layers further back in the stack.

[¶ 7] On the date of the incident, March 23, 2010, Mr. Johnson was standing on a layer of hay bales that was approximately four feet above the sleigh. The following illustration shows the stacks of bales and sleigh.

[¶ 8] The bales above the line had already been removed and fed to the cattle, and Mr. Johnson climbed up to that level to pull on the bales higher up in the next layer. He reached up to pull the string on one of the higher bales to bring the hay down for loading. When he pulled on the string, it broke. Mr. Johnson fell off the haystack and landed on the back of his head on the bed of the sleigh. He suffered an unstable fracture

of the second cervical vertebrae.

[¶ 9] Appellants sued Appellees in the district court for Lincoln County, claiming that they were negligent in a number of respects, including failing to provide a safe workplace, failing to warn of unsafe conditions, and failing to provide safety training or equipment. The Trust moved for summary judgment, which was granted. The court held that Mr. Johnson was not an employee of the trust, but that he was instead acting more as an independent contractor. It concluded that there were no genuine issues of material fact as to whether the Trust exercised sufficient control or undertook safety duties which imposed a duty of care to protect him from hazards incidental to feeding the cattle.

[¶ 10] The court also analyzed the case from the premises liability perspective, and found that Mr. Johnson was an invitee, and that the Trust had a duty to protect him from dangers it could have discovered by the exercise of reasonable care. It concluded that the Trust had no way of knowing that the string would break when Mr. Johnson pulled on it, and that it therefore had no duty to protect him from that hazard. It also held that Appellants raised no genuine issue of material fact as to whether anything the Trust did or failed to do proximately caused Mr. Johnson's injuries.

[¶ 11] Appellants timely perfected this appeal from the order granting summary judgment.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

[¶ 12] This Court reviews summary judgment decisions de novo. Union Pacific R. Co. v. Caballo Coal Co., 2011 WY 24, ¶ 12, 246 P.3d 867, 871 (Wyo.2011).

We review a summary judgment in the same light as the district court, using the same materials and following the same standards. Gayhart v. Goody, 2004 WY 112, ¶ 11, 98 P.3d 164, 168 (Wyo.2004). Summary judgment is proper only when there are no genuine issues of material fact, and the prevailing party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. Summary judgments are not favored in negligent actions. Cook v. Shoshone First Bank, 2006 WY 13, ¶ 12, 126 P.3d 886, 889 (Wyo.2006). However, summary judgments have been upheld in negligence cases where the record did not establish a genuine issue of material fact. Id.

Uinta Cnty. v. Pennington, 2012 WY 129, ¶ 11, 286 P.3d 138, 141–42 (Wyo.2012).

[¶ 13] The party requesting summary judgment bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that summary judgment should be granted as a matter of law. W.R.C.P. 56(c) ; Throckmartin v. Century 21 Top Realty, 2010 WY 23, ¶ 12, 226 P.3d 793, 798 (Wyo.2010). Until the movant has made a prima facie showing that there are no genuine issues of material fact, the non-movant has no obligation to respond to the motion with materials beyond the pleadings. Id.

[¶ 14] Once a prima facie showing is made, the burden shifts to the party opposing the motion to present evidence showing that there are genuine issues of material fact. Boehm v. Cody Cntry. Chamber of Commerce, 748 P.2d 704, 710 (Wyo.1987) (citing England v. Simmons, 728 P.2d 1137, 1140–41 (Wyo.1986) ). The party opposing the motion must present specific facts; relying on conclusory statements or mere opinion will not satisfy that burden, nor will relying solely upon allegations and pleadings. Boehm, 748 P.2d at 710. However, the facts presented are considered from the vantage point most favorable to the party opposing the motion, and that party is given the benefit of all favorable inferences that may fairly be drawn from the record. Caballo Coal Co., ¶ 12, 246 P.3d at 871.

[¶ 15] Summary judgments are not favored in negligence actions and are subject to exacting scrutiny. Erpelding v. Lisek, 2003 WY 80, ¶ 10, 71 P.3d 754, 757 (Wyo.2003). However, even in negligence actions, “where the record fails to establish an issue of material fact, [and when the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law], the entry of summary judgment is proper.” Allmaras v. Mudge, 820 P.2d 533, 536 (Wyo.1991) (alteration in original) (citing MacKrell v. Bell H2S Safety, 795 P.2d 776, 779 (Wyo.1990) ).

DISCUSSION

[¶ 16] In order to establish a claim for negligence, a plaintiff must show the following: (1) the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty to conform to a specified standard of care; (2) the defendant breached the duty of care; (3) the defendant's breach of the duty of care proximately caused the plaintiff's injury or injuries; and (4) the plaintiff has suffered an injury that is compensable by money damages. Hatton v. Energy Electric Co., 2006 WY 151, ¶ 10, 148 P.3d 8, 13 (Wyo.2006). The fact that an injury occurred, without more, is never sufficient to establish negligence. Collings v. Lords, 2009 WY 135, ¶ 10, 218 P.3d 654, 658 (Wyo.2009) ; Downen v. Sinclair Oil Corp., 887 P.2d 515, 520 (Wyo.1994).

[¶ 17] Although the district court found that the Trust owed Mr. Johnson no duty of care, this Court will not address that issue, because even if there was a duty of care, the Trust would still prevail as a matter of law.1 We acknowledge the difficulty of trying to define the relationship between the Trust and Mr. Johnson; in truth, he was a dutiful son helping his nearly-disabled father feed cattle as he had done for years. However, even if we assume that the Trust owed Mr. Johnson a duty of reasonable care, the record is devoid of any evidence raising a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the Trust breached that duty. As we have previously held, we may affirm an order granting summary judgment on any basis appearing in the record. Birt v. Wells Fargo Home Mortg., Inc., 75 P.3d 640, 664 (Wyo.2003) (citing Grose v. Sauvageau, 942 P.2d 398, 402 (Wyo.1997) ).

[¶ 18] Merely arguing that the Trust failed to act reasonably under the circumstances, as Appellants do at least in part, simply restates the elements required to establish negligence,...

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