Taney v. Independent School Dist. No. 624

• Decision Date: 13 January 2004
• Docket Number: No. A03-370.,A03-370.
• Citation: 673 N.W.2d 497
• Parties: Eunice TANEY, et al., Respondents, v. INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 624, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

673 N.W.2d 497

Eunice TANEY, et al., Respondents, v. INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 624, Appellant.

No. A03-370.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

January 13, 2004.

Scott Ballou, Patrick M. Biren, Brownson & Ballou, P.L.L.P., Minneapolis, MN, for appellant.

Kermit N. Fruechte, Richard L. Carlson, Hunegs, Stone, LeNeave, Kvas & Thorton, P.A., Minneapolis, MN, for respondents.

Considered and decided by KLAPHAKE, Presiding Judge; WILLIS, Judge; and ANDERSON, Judge.

OPINION

G. BARRY ANDERSON, Judge.

Respondent, Eunice Taney, brought a personal injury action against appellant, Independent School District No. 624(ISD). After a two-day jury trial, ISD moved for a directed verdict on the issue of negligence. The district court denied the motion. The jury returned a special verdict finding both parties causally negligent; the jury apportioned fault for the accident at 32% for Taney and 68% for ISD.

After the district court ordered judgment, ISD brought post-trial motions seeking judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), or in the alternative, a new trial. ISD also asserted that Taney was barred from using a negligence theory because the statute of limitations¹ pertaining to improvements to real property, Minn. Stat. § 541.051 subd. 1 (2002), had expired.

The district court denied ISD's motions and this appeal follows.

FACTS

On December 15, 1998, Taney and her daughter-in-law attended Taney's granddaughter's choir program at Sunrise Park Middle School (Sunrise). ISD owns and operates Sunrise. Sunrise was built in 1958. In 1992, in order to comply with the building code so that ISD could use Sunrise as a middle school, ISD remodeled the building. On November 5, 1993, the city of White Bear Lake's Department of Building Inspection issued a certificate of occupancy that stated, "[A]t the time of issuance [Sunrise] was in compliance with the various ordinances of the city regulating building construction or use."

The evening of December 15, 1998, was Taney's first visit to Sunrise. On that night, ISD blocked off two of Sunrise's three hallways; the third hallway led directly to the gymnasium where the concert was held. But there were neither signs nor guides directing visitors to the choir program. Taney and her daughter-in-law searched Sunrise for several minutes without finding the concert.

Taney and her daughter-in-law then came to a set of glass double-doors that led into an interior courtyard. Through the glass doors, Taney could see lights and people in the hallway on the other side of the courtyard, so Taney assumed that the concert was on the other side of the courtyard.

Taney pushed open one of the doors to the courtyard and stepped outside. Taney testified that when she opened the door and stepped outside the lights and the people in the hallway across the courtyard distracted her. At the threshold of the door was a nine-inch drop-off; Taney stepped through the door, fell as a result of the drop-off, and broke her hip when she landed on the ground. Taney's hip injury required surgery.

The weather on the night of Taney's fall was temperate; there was no snow on the ground. The courtyard is two hundred feet long and eighty feet wide; it does not have a sidewalk or artificial lighting, but on the night of the accident, some light from inside the building illuminated the yard.

At trial, Taney's expert witness, an architect, testified that (1) the nine-inch drop-off outside the doors violated the Uniform Building Code; (2) the sudden drop-off was a safety hazard because people do not expect such a steep drop-off outside doorways; (3) the sudden drop-off should have provided warning of the hazard to ISD, therefore, ISD should have had warning signs at the doors; (4) the door Taney opened was equipped with a "panic bar," which is hardware that is required on all exit doors of Sunrise; (5) the doors cannot be locked; and, (6) the "panic bar" doors to the courtyard were installed in a remodeling project in 1992.

ISD admits that during the 1992 remodeling project, it replaced the old interior doors at Sunrise with the "panic bar" door that Taney opened. But ISD contends that remodeling projects at the school have never changed the elevation of the step where Taney fell. Further, ISD argues that between the remodeling project in 1992, and Taney's accident in 1998, no one had been injured while stepping into the courtyard, and ISD had not received any complaints about the drop-off into the courtyard.

At the close of evidence, ISD moved for a directed verdict on the issue of negligence based on a violation of the Uniform Building Code; the district court denied the motion. Thereafter, ISD requested a jury instruction that the jury could not consider evidence of a building code violation as evidence of negligence; the district court denied this request. The district court did, however, instruct Taney's counsel that, during closing arguments, he could not argue that a violation of the Uniform Building Code was evidence of negligence. The district court did allow Taney's counsel to argue that Taney's expert witness based his determination that ISD was negligent on his training and forty years of experience.

ISSUES

I. Was the evidence sufficient to support the jury's finding of negligence?

II. Were Taney's claims against ISD barred by Minn.Stat. § 541.051 subd. 1, the statute of repose pertaining to improvements to real property?

III. Did the district court abuse its discretion when it refused to issue an instruction that the jury could not consider violations of the Uniform Building Code in determining whether ISD was negligent?

ANALYSIS

Standard of review for JNOV

This court reviews the denial of a motion for JNOV de novo. Pouliot v. Fitzsimmons, 582 N.W.2d 221, 224 (Minn. 1998). But where the district court has denied JNOV, the appellate court must affirm the denial "if, in the record, `there is any competent evidence reasonably tending to sustain the verdict.'" Id. (quoting Rettman v. City of Litchfield, 354 N.W.2d 426, 429 (Minn.1984)). Further, the reviewing court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing party; this court will not set aside the verdict if it is sustainable on "any reasonable theory of the evidence." Fitzsimmons, 582 N.W.2d at 224. In fact, the evidence must be practically conclusive that the verdict was incorrect in order for this court to set that verdict aside. Id.

Standard of review for granting a new trial

Rule 59 of the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure governs motions for a new trial. According to Rule 59:

Rule 59.01. Grounds

A new trial may be granted to all or any of the parties and on all or part of the issues for any of the following causes:

(a) Irregularity in the proceedings of the court, referee, jury, or prevailing party, or any order or abuse of discretion, whereby the moving party was deprived of a fair trial;

...

(g) The verdict, decision, or report is not justified by the evidence, or is contrary to law; but, unless it be so expressly stated in the order granting a new trial, it shall not be presumed, on appeal, to have been made on the ground that the verdict, decision, or report was not justified by the evidence.

The district court has the discretion to grant a new trial, and this court will not disturb that decision absent a clear abuse of discretion. Halla Nursery, Inc. v. Baumann-Furrie & Co., 454 N.W.2d 905, 910 (Minn.1990). On appeal, the verdict will not be disturbed "unless it is manifestly and palpably contrary to the evidence, viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict." ZumBerge v. N. States Power Co., 481 N.W.2d 103, 110 (Minn. App.1992), review denied (Minn. Apr. 29, 1992).

I.

Possessors of land owe entrants a duty to exercise reasonable care in maintaining that land. Peterson v. Balach, 294 Minn. 161, 174, 199 N.W.2d 639, 647 (1972). Further, possessors of land have an ongoing duty to inspect and maintain their property so that unreasonably dangerous conditions will be discovered; the possessor then must either remedy the condition or provide entrants adequate warning of the condition. See Bonniwell v. St. Paul Union Stockyards Co., 271 Minn. 233, 238, 135 N.W.2d 499, 502-503 (1965).

Landowners generally do not owe entrants a duty to warn or protect them from risks that are open and obvious.²Wiseman v. N. Pac. Ry. Co., 214 Minn. 101, 107, 7 N.W.2d 672, 675 (1943). Landowners must, however, protect entrants from dangerous conditions on the land, even open and obvious conditions, if there is a reasonable expectation that the entrant's attention will be distracted from the danger. Lincoln v. Cambridge-Radisson Co., 235 Minn. 20, 23, 49 N.W.2d 1, 3 (1951). In fact, "where there is some distraction or other reason which will excuse the failure to see that which is in plain sight, it can be said that a person has exercised that degree of care required of an ordinarily prudent person." Krengel v. Midwest Automatic Photo, Inc., 295 Minn. 200, 206, 203 N.W.2d 841, 845 (1973) (holding three defendants jointly liable for injuries sustained by respondent who tripped over a one and a quarter inch riser in a photo booth). Further, a condition that is obvious during the day may not be obvious at night. See Betzold v. Sherwin, 404 N.W.2d 286, 289 (Minn.App.1987) (holding that an open stairwell that was visible during the day was not an open, obvious, and dangerous condition in the darkness), review denied (Minn. June 25, 1987).

Here, the jury found that ISD negligently cared for and maintained Sunrise. The jury found that this negligence was the direct cause of Taney's accident on December 15, 2003. In light of the facts presented at trial, including: (1) that Taney had never been at Sunrise before; (2) that ISD did not place signs directing visitors to the concert; (3) that ISD did not have personnel available to direct visitors to the concert; (4) that there was a nine-inch drop-off outside the doors; (5) that ISD did...