Eaton v. McLain

• Citation: 891 S.W.2d 587
• Parties: Pauline EATON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James McLAIN and wife, Tammy McLain, Defendants-Appellees.
• Decision Date: 31 October 1994
• Court: Supreme Court of Tennessee

Page 587

891 S.W.2d 587

Pauline EATON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James McLAIN and wife, Tammy McLain, Defendants-Appellees.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Knoxville.

October 31, 1994.

Petition to Rehear Nov. 9, 1994.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 17, 1995.

John S. Bingham, Hawkins, Moody, Bingham, Miller & Associates, Kingsport, for plaintiff-appellant.

James W. Harrison, Taylor, Reams, Tilson, & Harrison, Morristown, for defendants-appellees.

OPINION

DROWOTA, Justice.

In this premises liability action, the plaintiff Pauline Eaton appeals from the Court of Appeals' reversal of a judgment in her favor based on a jury verdict. In its verdict, the jury found that the negligence of both plaintiff and defendants, James and Tammy McLain, contributed to the plaintiff's injuries; and it allocated 40% of the total negligence to Eaton and 60% to the McLains. This case presents two issues for our determination: (1) whether the Court of Appeals was correct in holding that the trial court should have granted the defendants' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict because the "evidence was overwhelming that the plaintiff's degree of fault was greater than or equal to that of the defendants"; and (2) whether the Court of Appeals was correct in its alternative holding--that the plaintiff failed to present legally sufficient evidence as to the duty element in her claims of negligence.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On March 23, 1991, Pauline Eaton travelled to the home of Tammy and James McLain--her daughter and son-in-law--to spend the night. Ms. Eaton arrived at the McLains' about 6:00 p.m., and she and her daughter and son-in-law remained in the kitchen/den area of the home watching television until approximately 9:30 or 10:00. At that time, Ms. Eaton decided to go to bed. Because the McLains' daughter Melanie was spending the night at a friend's house, Ms. Eaton was advised by her daughter to sleep in Melanie's bedroom. This bedroom is located along a long, narrow hallway that connects the kitchen/den area on one end of the house to the master bedroom on the other end. Directly across the hall from Melanie's bedroom are two virtually identical doors that are adjacent to one another: the door to the right opens into a bathroom; and the door to the left opens onto a flight of stairs leading down to the basement. At the time of Ms. Eaton's stay, the lock on the basement door was inoperable.

The McLains decided to go to bed about 11:00. While en route down the hallway to the master bedroom, Tammy McLain closed both the door to the bathroom and the door leading to the basement stairwell; she also switched off the hallway and bathroom lights.

Ms. Eaton awoke about 5:00 the next morning needing to go to the bathroom. Although it was very dark when she awoke, Ms. Eaton did not turn on either the light in Melanie's bedroom or the light in the hallway as she attempted to make her way to the bathroom. Instead, she proceeded across the hall and opened the basement door, believing it to be the bathroom door, and stepped inside. Ms. Eaton fell down the stairs and sustained injuries to her elbow and back.

Ms. Eaton subsequently brought an action against her daughter and son-in-law, alleging that they were negligent in turning the hallway and bathroom lights off, in failing to provide a working lock on the basement door, and in failing to warn her of the location of the stairs. At the trial, Ms. Eaton testified that she did not turn on any lights before proceeding in the dark because she was afraid of awakening her grandson, who was asleep in another bedroom a short distance down the hall. Ms. Eaton testified that she had been in the McLains' home before the night of the accident, but that she was not completely familiar with the layout of the home. She also testified that she knew that the house had a basement, and had in fact been in the basement, but did not remember if she had descended the basement stairs on any of her previous visits. Ms. Eaton also stated that she did not remember if she had used the hall bathroom before the night of the accident. Finally, Ms. Eaton testified that the McLains did not warn her of the location of the stairs, and that they did not provide a night light or take other precautions to prevent the accident.

After the conclusion of the evidence, the defendants moved for a directed verdict, which was denied by the trial court. The trial court then submitted the case to the jury. In its verdict, the jury found that the negligence of both the plaintiff and defendants proximately caused plaintiff's injuries, and it attributed 40% of the total negligence to the plaintiff and 60% to the defendants. After the trial court denied their motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the defendants appealed to the Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment and dismissed the action. The Court's holding was predicated on two different rationales. First, the Court noted that Tennessee law prior to McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn.1992), provided that when a plaintiff voluntarily takes a "step-in-the-dark" into an unfamiliar, unlighted area, he is deemed to have been contributorily negligent as a matter of law and therefore is precluded from recovering for any resulting injuries. ¹ Although the Court realized that McIntyre abolished the defense of contributory negligence, it held that in view of the policy considerations underlying the "step in the dark" decisions, the trial court erred in failing to grant the defendants' motion for JNOV because the evidence was "overwhelming" that Ms. Eaton's negligence either equalled or was greater than the McLains' negligence.

The Court also held that the motion for JNOV should have been granted because the record contained no material evidence to support the jury's finding that the defendants owed the plaintiff a duty to protect her against the specific acts set forth in the complaint. ²

We granted Ms. Eaton's Rule 11 application in order to clarify the circumstances in which a trial or appellate court may hold, as a matter of law, that the plaintiff's degree of fault is equal to or greater than the defendant's. We also granted the application to address the Court's holding regarding the duty aspect of her negligence claims.

THE DIRECTED VERDICT/JNOV ISSUE

The standards governing trial courts in ruling on motions for directed verdict or JNOV in negligence cases are well established. In ruling on the motion, the court must take the strongest legitimate view of the evidence in favor of the non-moving party. In other words, the court must remove any conflict in the evidence by construing it in the light most favorable to the non-movant and discarding all countervailing evidence. The court may grant the motion only if, after assessing the evidence according to the foregoing standards, it determines that reasonable minds could not differ as to the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence. Sauls v. Evans, 635 S.W.2d 377 (Tenn.1982); Holmes v. Wilson, 551 S.W.2d 682 (Tenn.1977). If there is any doubt as to the proper conclusions to be drawn from the evidence, the motion must be denied. Crosslin v. Alsup, 594 S.W.2d 379 (Tenn.1980).

Under the pre-McIntyre fault system, the question for the trial court on a motion for directed verdict/JNOV alleging contributory negligence was: if, after taking the strongest legitimate view of the evidence in the plaintiff's favor, could it be determined beyond question that the plaintiff was guilty of any negligence that proximately caused the resulting injuries? If the answer to this question was "yes," then a directed verdict was proper. This situation was rare, however, for as we emphasized in Frady v. Smith, 519 S.W.2d 584 (Tenn.1974):

Negligence, contributory negligence, and proximate cause are ordinarily issues to be decided by the jury, and can be withdrawn from the jury and decided by the court only in those cases where the facts are established by evidence free from conflict, and the inference from the facts is so certain that all reasonable men, in the exercise of a free and impartial judgment, must agree upon it.

519 S.W.2d at 586. See also Brookins v. The Round Table, Inc., 624 S.W.2d 547 (Tenn.1981); Schindler v. Southern Coach Lines, 188 Tenn. 169, 217 S.W.2d 775 (1949).

This Court's adoption of the doctrine of comparative fault in McIntyre does not change these standards governing the trial court's assessment of the evidence; nor does it change the established standard governing the trial court's ultimate decision of whether to grant the motion. The trial court still must take the strongest legitimate view of the evidence in favor of the non-movant; and it must grant the motion only if reasonable minds could not differ as to the legal conclusions to be drawn from that evidence.

The recitation of these standards of review does not, however, provide a satisfactory answer to the issue before us because McIntyre has radically changed the question to be asked by the trial court on a motion for directed verdict/JNOV which alleges negligence on the part of the plaintiff. The question now is not whether the plaintiff was guilty of any negligence that proximately caused the resulting injuries. Instead, the question is: assuming that both plaintiff and defendant have been found guilty of negligent conduct that proximately caused the injuries, was the fault attributable to plaintiff equal to or greater than the fault attributable to the defendant. ³

The trial court's determination as to whether reasonable minds could differ on this new question is made more difficult by the fact that it has not been provided with any guidance as to how to apportion fault. The formulation of workable, meaningful standards to guide trial courts in this area is no simple matter; this is evidenced by the marked divergence of opinion of courts and commentators on whether fault should be apportioned according to the nature...