Mudd v. Travelers Indem. Co.

• Decision Date: 24 February 1975
• Docket Number: No. 55106,55106
• Citation: 309 So.2d 297
• Parties: Ben MUDD, on behalf of the Community and Olga Mudd v. TRAVELERS INDEMNITY COMPANY.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 297

309 So.2d 297

Ben MUDD, on behalf of the Community and Olga Mudd v. TRAVELERS INDEMNITY COMPANY.

No. 55106.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

Feb. 24, 1975.

Rehearing Denied March 31, 1975.

Robert P. Hogan, Camp, Carmouche, Palmer, Carwile & Barsh, Lake Charles, for defendant-applicant.

John B. Scofield, Scofield, Bergstedt & Gerard, Lake Charles, for plaintiff-respondent.

MARCUS, Justice.

This suit was filed by Ben and Olga Mudd for damages sustained as a result of personal injuries suffered by Mrs. Mudd while operating a lawn mower on property owned by their son-in-law, Roland Trosclair, and medical expenses incurred by Mr. Mudd on behalf of his wife. Named as the single defendant was Travelers Indemnity Company, the liability insurer of Trosclair. Defendant answered by way of general denial and further alleged the plaintiffs' negligence (whether contributory or sole) to be a proximate cause of the accident.

The matter was tried before a jury, which, by special verdict, found defendant's insured, Roland Trosclair, to be guilty of negligence that was the proximate cause of the accident and plaintiffs to be free of contributory negligence. The jury further found Mrs. Mudd to have sustained damages in the total amount of $15,000.00 and allowed Mr. Mudd to recover the medical expenses of his wife in the amount of $2,000.00. Pursuant to these findings, the trial judge rendered judgment against defendant and in favor of plaintiffs for the stipulated amounts, plus costs.

Defendant appealed the judgment to the court of appeal, which in a two-to-one decision, affirmed the trial court's judgment. Mudd v. Traveler's Indemnity Co., 295 So.2d 540 (La.App.3d Cir. 1974). Upon defendant's application, we granted a writ of certiorari to review the judgment of the court of appeal. 301 So.2d 44 (La.1974).

FACTS

The property upon which the accident that forms the subject of this litigation occurred is a 42-acre tract of farm land located near Ragley, Louisiana that was purchased by Roland Trosclair as a second home in February, 1971. Trosclair's permanent residence is in the village of Cameron, Louisiana, where he operates a canning company. Shortly after the purchase, Trosclair began to visit the tract on weekends with the Mudds, his wife's family from Lake Charles, and eventually placed them in full care of the house and surroundings. In exchange, the Mudds were to live on the farm, gratuitously, paying neither rent nor utilities. Because the Mudds still had two school age children residing with them, their visits to the farm were initially limited to weekends and holidays during the school year. Once school was out, they moved to Ragley for the entire summer.

Sometime in late spring of 1971, Trosclair brought his two-year-old riding lawnmower from Cameron to the Ragley property, leaving the mower in the care of the Mudds for their use in cutting the grass. The mower was used all through the summer to cut grass growing in the yard and a five-acre pasture on a weekly basis. The Mudds moved back to their home in Lake Charles at the end of the summer, again limiting their visits to weekends and holidays. The seasonal change diminished the amount of maintenance required on the property; mowing was done on approximately a monthly, rather than weekly, basis.

The accident that caused Mrs. Mudd's injuries occurred on Saturday, November 27, 1971. The Mudds had gone to the farm to spend the Thanskgiving holidays there. That Saturday, Mrs. Mudd began to use the lawnmower to cut the grass growing in the backyard while her husband and children left to run errands. In the course of mowing, she encountered a bucket and hose laying in her path. She stopped the mower by shifting the gears from forward to neutral, disengaged the mower blades, got off the machine, and walked in front with her back to the mower to move the obstructions. By her own account (Mrs. Mudd was the sole witness to the accident), the mower somehow jumped from neutral into forward gear and struck her from behind, knocking her down with sufficient force to cause a comminuted fracture of the left patella (Viz., kneecap), a fracture of the great right toe, and various lacerations of her legs and feet. Mrs. Mudd then lay in the backyard helpless for approximately half an hour awaiting the return of her family. The mower continued to run after striking her and finally lodged against a tree, where it was found upon the family's return with the motor still running.

Mrs. Mudd was immediately taken to a hospital, where surgery was performed that evening. Her patella was removed, her lacerations were tended, and her left leg and right toe were placed in casts. Upon her release from the hospital, she underwent physical therapy briefly and, according to her doctor, today suffers little functional disability. This suit was filed on May 15, 1972.

ISSUES

The issue immediately confronting us in this case concerns the applicable law that governs the legal relations among the parties. Once we determine what legal duty of care or standard of conduct was owed by Trosclair to the Mudds under these circumstances, we can then decide whether there was, in fact a breach of that duty such as would render Trosclair's liability insurer, Travelers, liable for the damages sustained by the Mudds.

I.

In its review of the judgment of the trial court, the majority of the court of appeal panel determined that Mrs. Mudd's status on Trosclair's land was that of an invitee. Accordingly, the duty of care to which Trosclair was held was to warn Mrs. Mudd of any concealed or hidden defects or perils of which she was unaware and of which Trosclair knew or should have known in the exercise of reasonable care. In finding that Trosclair's conduct fell short of the legal standard, the court noted that he had used the mower for two years prior to placing it on the premises at Ragley; during that time, he removed a safety guard or bar from the housing of the mower and admitted that, when encountering heavy grass, the mower on occasion slipped from forward to neutral gear, causing it to stop. It was from this evidence that the majority concluded that Trosclair had breached his duty to warn Mrs. Mudd of defects in the mower of which he knew or should have known in the exercise of reasonable care.

The dissenting judge was unable to agree with either the majority's classification of the legal relations of the parties (preferring to characterize the transaction between Trosclair and the Mudds as a loan for use, governed by articles 2893 through 2909 of the Civil Code) or its conclusion that Trosclair was or should have been aware of the defects that caused the accident. Moreover, he found, contrary to the majority, that both plaintiffs were guilty of contributory negligence, which would bar their recovery. Mudd v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 295 So.2d 540, 546 (La.App.3d Cir. 1974) (Hood, J., dissenting).

The conflict between the majority and dissenting opinions of the court of appeal crystallizes the issue confronting us, Viz., under the circumstances presented here, what is Trosclair's duty of care to the Mudds? The obligations imposed upon persons by the law of delict in Louisiana differ according to their relationships with one another under a given set of facts. Hence, we must determine whether, in placing the mower on the premises for their use, the relationship between Trosclair and the Mudds was that of an owner of an immovable and persons on the premises or a lender and borrowers of a movable. Additionally, beyond any special rule that provides a standard of conduct for parties enjoying a particular status, Trosclair's conduct must then be evaluated according to the general standard of conduct owed by each person to the public at large, which obliges us to repair whatever damage is caused by our fault. La.Civil Code arts. 2315, 2316 (1870), as amended by Acts 1960, No. 30, § 1.

The appropriate basis of an owner's delictual liability is found in articles 2315 through 2324 of the Civil Code, which contain the general rules of delict. Article 2322 provides:

The owner of a Building is answerable for the Damage occasioned by its ruin, when this is caused by neglect to repair it, or when it is the result of a vice in its original construction.

(Emphasis added.) See also La.Civil Code art. 670 (1870); Comment, Article 2322 and the Liability of the Owner of an Immovable, 42 Tul.L.Rev. 178 (1967). By its terms, article 2322 expressly limits one's liability as an owner to damages caused by the 'ruin' of his 'building.' ¹ The jurisprudential definition of the word 'building' as used in article 2322 is largely undeveloped and, hence, is circumscribed by...