Tantimonico v. Allendale Mut. Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 25 February 1994
• Citation: 637 A.2d 1056
• Parties: Guy TANTIMONICO, Jr. v. ALLENDALE MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY. John McPHILLIPS, Jr. v. ALLENDALE MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY et al. 92-484-Appeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 1056

637 A.2d 1056

Guy TANTIMONICO, Jr. v. ALLENDALE MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY.

John McPHILLIPS, Jr. v. ALLENDALE MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY et al.

92-484-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Feb. 25, 1994.

Frederick Costello, Lynch, Costello & Friel, Warwick, Peter Mathieu, Dennis Baluch, Baluch, Mahoney & Gianfrancesco, Providence, for plaintiffs.

John Kershaw, Rice, Dolan & Kershaw, Jeffrey Gladstone, Partridge, Snow & Hahn, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

SHEA, Justice.

These consolidated cases are before the Supreme Court on the appeals of the plaintiffs from Superior Court orders granting the defendant's motions for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow we affirm.

The facts of this case are not in dispute. On May 5, 1985, Guy Tantimonico, Jr., and John McPhillips, Jr. (plaintiffs), were riding motorcycles on a piece of undeveloped property owned by Allendale Mutual Insurance Company (defendant) located near its corporate headquarters in Johnston, Rhode Island. While independently riding their motorcycles on the property, plaintiffs, both in their twenties, collided head on with each other. Neither plaintiff can recall the specifics of the accident, but both Tantimonico and McPhillips suffered severe injuries that required extensive hospitalization.

At the conclusion of the hearing on defendant's motions for summary judgment, the trial justice stated that he could find no legal duty that would support the actions against defendant and, that without a legal duty, no material facts were to be found because the question of law was dispositive of the entire matters.

The plaintiffs argue on appeal that in light of this court's holding in Mariorenzi v. DiPonte, Inc., 114 R.I. 294, 333 A.2d 127 (1975), the trial justice erred in granting defendant's motions for summary judgment. In Mariorenzi a five-year-old trespasser at a construction site accidentally drowned in an excavation that had filled with water. On appeal, this court abolished the common-law distinctions between the duties owed to licensees, invitees, and trespassers and substituted the tort test of reasonableness. We now take this opportunity to depart from the holding in Mariorenzi as it pertains to trespassers.

Traditionally at common law the possessor of land owed a trespasser

"no duty to discover, remedy, or warn of dangerous natural conditions. Perhaps if the possessor sees a trespasser about to encounter extreme danger from such a source, which is known to the possessor and perceptibly not known to the trespasser, there may be a duty to warn (as by shouting). That is about as far as the bystander's duty to a highway traveler would traditionally go, if indeed it would go that far." 4 Harper, James & Gray, The Law of Torts § 27.3 at 139 (2d ed. 1986).

Rhode Island followed the common law status categories, and in Previte v. Wanskuck Co., 80 R.I. 1, 3, 90 A.2d 769, 770 (1952), this court stated that "in the ordinary case under the established law in this state no duty is owed a trespasser by a landowner except to refrain from injuring him wantonly or wilfully after discovering his peril."

Many jurisdictions carved out exceptions to the common-law status categories, and in 1957 Great Britain's Parliament enacted a statute abolishing the distinction between licensees and invitees. See Occupier's Liability Act, 5 & 6 Eliz. 2, c. 31 (1957).

In Kermarec v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 358 U.S. 625, 79 S.Ct. 406, 3 L.Ed.2d 550 (1959), the Supreme Court expressed its dissatisfaction with the common-law distinctions between licensees and invitees when it refused to extend them to maritime law. The Court stated:

"The distinctions which the common law draws between licensee and invitee were inherited from a culture deeply rooted to the land, a culture which traced many of its standards to a heritage of feudalism. In an effort to do justice in an industrialized urban society, with its complex economic and individual relationships, modern common-law courts have found it necessary to formulate increasingly subtle verbal refinements, to create subclassifications among traditional common-law categories, and to delineate fine gradations in the standards of care which the landowner owes to each. Yet even within a single jurisdiction, the classifications and sub-classifications bred by the common law have produced confusion and conflict. As new distinctions have been spawned, older ones have become obscured. Through this semantic morass the common law has moved, unevenly and with hesitation, towards 'imposing on owners and occupiers a single duty of reasonable care in all the circumstances.' " Id. at 630-31, 79 S.Ct. at 410, 3 L.Ed.2d at 554-55.

The Court went on to hold that "the owner of a ship in navigable waters owes to all who are on board for purposes not inimical to his legitimate interests the duty of exercising reasonable care under the circumstances of each case." Id. at 632, 79 S.Ct. at 410, 3 L.Ed.2d at 555. That holding would in all likelihood not include a duty to a trespasser.

It was not until the Supreme Court of California issued its opinion in Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal.2d 108, 443 P.2d 561, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97 (1968), that the common-law categories were judicially abrogated in a United States jurisdiction.

The California court stated:

"[T]o focus upon the status of the injured party as a trespasser, licensee, or invitee in order to determine the question whether the landowner has a duty of care, is contrary to our modern social mores and humanitarian values. The common law rules obscure rather than illuminate the proper considerations which should govern determination of the question of duty."

"It bears repetition that the basic policy of this state set forth by the Legislature in section 1714 of the Civil Code is that everyone is responsible for an injury caused to another by his want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his property. The factors which may in particular cases warrant departure from this fundamental principle do not warrant the wholesale immunities resulting from the common law classifications, and we are satisfied that continued adherence to the common law distinctions can only lead to injustice or, if we are to avoid injustice, further fictions with the resulting complexity and confusion. We decline to follow and perpetrate such rigid classifications." Id. at 118-19, 443 P.2d at 568, 70 Cal.Rptr. at 104.

In the wake of Rowland, this court in Mariorenzi cited opinions from a limited number of jurisdictions that purportedly followed the California lead by totally abrogating the common-law status categories. See Smith v. Arbaugh's Restaurant, Inc., 469 F.2d 97 (D.C.Cir.1972), cert. denied, 412 U.S. 939, 93 S.Ct. 2774, 37 L.Ed.2d 399 (1973); Webb v. City of Sitka, 561 P.2d 731 (Alaska 1977); Mile High Fence Co. v. Radovich, 175 Colo. 537, 489 P.2d 308 (1971); Pickard v. City and County of Honolulu, 51 Hawaii 134, 452 P.2d 445 (1969); Cates v. Beauregard Electric Cooperative, Inc., 328 So.2d 367 (La.1976); Ouellette v. Blanchard, 116 N.H. 552, 364 A.2d 631 (1976); Basso v. Miller, 40 N.Y.2d 233, 352 N.E.2d 868, 386 N.Y.S.2d 564 (1976). As Justice Joslin pointed out in his dissent, however, none of these cases involved an injury to a trespasser.

"In Rowland v. Christian, 69 Cal.2d 108, 443 P.2d 561, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97 (1968), a tenant's social guest was injured while using a faulty bathroom fixture, which defect had been reported to the landlord-defendant; in Pickard v. City & County of Honolulu, 51 Hawaii 134, 452 P.2d 445 (1969), a licensee was injured when he unexpectedly fell through a hole in the floor in the restroom of the defendant's courthouse; in Mile High Fence Co. v. Radovich, 175 Colo. 537, 489 P.2d 308 (1971), an on-duty police officer, who the defendant argued was a licensee, sustained injury when he walked down an alley in the course of his work and stepped into an unprotected fence hole dug by the defendant; in Smith v. Arbaugh's Restaurant, Inc., 469 F.2d 97 (D.C.Cir.1972), a building inspector was injured while examining the barbecue kitchen in the defendant's restaurant. See also Sargent v. Ross, 113 N.H. 388, 308 A.2d 528 (1973), where the plaintiff-tenant's 4-year-old daughter lost her life when she fell from the defendant-landlord's outdoor stairway." Mariorenzi, 114 R.I. at 309 n. 2, 333 A.2d at 134 n. 2.

Other jurisdictions repudiated the distinctions between licensee and invitee but retained limited-duty rules for trespassers. Poulin v. Colby College, 402 A.2d 846 (Me.1979); Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693, 297 N.E.2d 43 (1973); Peterson v. Balach, 294 Minn. 161, 199 N.W.2d 639 (1972); O'Leary v. Coenen, 251 N.W.2d 746 (N.D.1977); Antoniewicz v. Reszcynski, 70 Wis.2d 836, 236 N.W.2d 1 (1975).

Although repudiation or modification of the common-law status categories took effect in the above jurisdictions, by the late seventies an increasing number of courts had specifically rejected Rowland. See Whaley v. Lawing, 352 So.2d 1090 (Ala.1977); Wood v. Camp, 284 So.2d 691 (Fla.1973); Gerchberg v. Loney, 223 Kan. 446, 576 P.2d 593 (1978); Sherman v. Suburban Trust Co., 282 Md. 238, 384 A.2d 76 (1978); Sutherland v. Saint Francis Hospital, Inc., 595 P.2d 780 (Okla.1979); Buchholz v. Steitz, 463 S.W.2d 451 (Tex.Civ.App.1971); Tjas v. Proctor, 591 P.2d 438 (Utah 1979). Others had postponed considering the repudiation of the categories, and still others simply reaffirmed the traditional classifications. See Page, The Law of Premises Liability at 139-40 (2d ed. 1988).

In Mariorenzi this court stated that it was giving a "final but fitting interment" to all three common-law categories. 114 R.I. at 307, 333 A.2d at 133. It also stated:

"The time has come to extricate ourselves from a semantical quagmire that had its beginning in ancient and misleading phraseology. * * * The judiciary gave birth to the invitee, licensee, trespasser trio and the judiciary can lay this...