Sierra Pacific Power Co. v. Rinehart, 14327
| Decision Date | 24 June 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 14327,14327 |
| Citation | 665 P.2d 270,99 Nev. 557 |
| Parties | , 1983 O.S.H.D. (CCH) P 26,646 SIERRA PACIFIC POWER COMPANY, a Nevada corporation; Idaho Power Company, a foreign corporation, Appellants, v. Sandra S. RINEHART, Individually and Pamela Weeks Hahn, Respondents. |
| Court | Nevada Supreme Court |
Beasley & Holden, Woodburn, Wedge, Blakey & Jeppson; and Leggett & Hamilton, Reno, for appellants.
Bradley & Drendel, Reno, for respondents.
In this appeal from a judgment in a wrongful death action, appellants challenge the trial court's decision that: (1) as landowners, appellants breached three separate duties which they owed to the decedent by not providing any safety devices during construction; and (2) as the proximate cause of their negligence, the decedent's mother suffered damages in the sum of $800,280. We conclude that appellants did not owe the decedent a duty under any of the three theories upon which liability was based. Initially, in light of the obviousness of the danger, the trial court erred in imposing on appellants the common law duty of a landowner to an invitee to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition. Further, the lower court erred in holding that appellants had a statutory duty, pursuant to NRS 618.395, to provide employees a safe place to work because, contrary to its ruling, the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Act does not create a civil remedy in an employee's favor. Finally, the lower court improperly ruled that appellants breached their nondelegable duties, under sections 413 and 416 of the Restatement of Torts, to provide special precautions because employees are not included in the term "others" for the purposes of those sections. Accordingly, we reverse the lower court's judgment.
On September 1, 1978, appellant, Sierra Pacific Power Company (Sierra Pacific), hired Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation (S & W) as a general contractor to design and construct a coal-fired electricity generating station on a parcel of land which Sierra Pacific owned in Valmy, Nevada. The construction project was to be known as the Valmy Power Plant Project. 1 S & W in turn contracted with Ecodyne Cooling Products (Ecodyne) to erect a cooling tower at Valmy.
On April 15, 1980, James Hahn, employed by Ecodyne as a laborer, sustained fatal injuries as a result of a 50 foot fall while working on the construction of the cooling tower. As a result of the accident, Nevada Industrial Commission paid and continues to pay Hahn's widow death benefits under Ecodyne's policy. In addition, Hahn's widow and his mother brought a wrongful death action against appellants based on negligence, pursuant to NRS 41.085(2). After a bench trial, judgment was entered in favor of respondents. The court awarded $800,280 to Hahn's mother, but his widow was denied relief.
The trial court determined that appellants, as landowner-contractees, were liable for the death of James Hahn in that they breached three separate duties which they owed Hahn by not providing any safety devices for the protection of the employees during the construction of the cooling tower. These three duties are as follows: (1) a common law duty of a landowner to an invitee to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition; (2) a statutory duty to provide employees a safe place to work pursuant to NRS 618.395; and (3) a nondelegable duty to take precautions against peculiar risk of harm to others.
The district judge concluded that appellants, by virtue of their status as landowners, owe a common law duty to invitees to keep their premises in a reasonably safe condition and to exercise reasonable care to protect invitees on their property. The court further found that appellants breached this duty by failing to provide or cause to be provided rails, nets or solid planking at the construction site. Appellants contend that such a duty does not extend to obvious dangers that were present in the instant case nor does it require them to provide a safe place to work. We agree.
An employee of a contractor is an invitee of the owner to whom the owner owes a duty to exercise reasonable care. Davis v. Whitsett, 435 P.2d 592 (Okl.1967). The owner is also under a duty to warn an invitee of hidden dangers. This duty does not, however, extend to obvious dangers. Worth v. Reed, 79 Nev. 351, 384 P.2d 1017 (1963). Therefore, because the danger, i.e., the height of the cooling tower, was obvious to all, appellants were not under a duty to warn its invitees of the danger. Furthermore, although there is a common law duty to provide a safe place to work, Monroe v. City of New York, 67 A.D.2d 89, 414 N.Y.S.2d 718 (1979), "the owner of the property is under no duty to protect the employees of an independent contractor from risks arising from or intimately connected with defects or hazards which the contractor has undertaken to repair or which are created by the job contracted." Celender v. Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, 208 Pa.Super. 390, 222 A.2d 461 (Pa.1966). Here, the dangerous condition complained of was created during the course, and as a necessary consequence of, building the cooling tower. Accordingly, appellants, as landowners, had no common law duty to take safety precautions during the construction.
The district judge also found that appellants had a statutory duty to provide the decedent with a safe place to work pursuant to NRS 618.395. That section of the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Act provides: "An employer, owner or lessee of any real property in this state shall not construct, cause to be constructed or maintained any place of employment that is not safe and healthful." In rendering judgment in favor of respondents, the trial court determined that appellants breached this duty by failing to provide any safety devices. Appellants contend that the trial court erred in relying upon a violation of NRS 618.395 as a basis for imposing liability. Appellants' contention is meritorious. In Frith v. Harrah South Shore Corp., 92 Nev. 447, 552 P.2d 337 (1976), we held that the Occupational Safety and Health Act "does not create, either directly or impliedly, a private civil remedy in favor of employees." Id. at 451, 552 P.2d 337. Thus, NRS 618.395 did not create a duty for appellants to provide Hahn with a safe place to work.
The final theory of liability is based on the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 416 (1965) which provides:
One who employs an independent contractor to do work which the employer should recognize as likely to create during its progress a peculiar risk of physical harm to others unless special precautions are taken, is subject to liability for physical harm caused to them by the failure of the contractor to exercise reasonable care to take such precautions, even though the employer has provided for such precautions in the contract or otherwise.
Relying on the foregoing provision, the trial court determined that appellants breached their nondelegable duty to take precautions...
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