Terry v. Central Auto Radiators, Inc.

• Citation: 732 A.2d 713
• Decision Date: 01 July 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-108-Appeal.,98-108-Appeal.
• Parties: Ann Marie TERRY v. CENTRAL AUTO RADIATORS, INC.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Rhode Island

732 A.2d 713

Ann Marie TERRY v. CENTRAL AUTO RADIATORS, INC.

No. 98-108-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 1, 1999.

Present WEISBERGER, C.J., and LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS, and GOLDBERG, JJ.

Paul S. Cantor, Providence, for Plaintiff.

Mark C. Hadden, James R. Baum, Providence, for Defendant.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This case came before the Court for oral argument on May 19, 1999, pursuant to an order directing the parties to appear and show cause why the issues raised in the plaintiff's appeal should not be summarily decided. After hearing the arguments of counsel and examining the memoranda filed by the parties, we conclude that cause has not been shown and we proceed to decide the plaintiff's appeal at this time.

In this negligence case, the plaintiff, Ann Marie Terry (plaintiff), seeks review of the trial court's entry of judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendant Central Auto Radiators, Inc. (defendant).

I Case Travel — Facts

On January 9, 1991, at approximately 10 a.m., the plaintiff brought her automobile to the defendant's place of business for repair. She parked it at the front of the shop leading to the repair bays and was told that she could return for it later in the day. At that time, and throughout the whole day into the evening, the weather consisted of a mixture of snow and freezing rain. When the plaintiff returned at approximately 4:00 p.m. to pay for the repairs and to retrieve her automobile, it was nowhere to be seen. She was informed that the car had been repaired and had been placed behind the defendant's business premises some one hundred feet distant.

After paying for the repair charges, she was handed the keys to her automobile and told to go and get the vehicle. At the same time, Michael Wirkerman, one of the defendant's employees, told her to be careful in walking to the rear of the building because of the icy conditions. The plaintiff safely managed the long walk along the side of the defendant's building, but upon reaching the rear area, she slipped and fell on rutted ice and was injured. She later filed this civil action for damages in the Superior Court.

The plaintiff's case was reached for trial before a jury. Following the presentation of her case in chief, the defendant moved for judgment as a matter of law. The trial justice, relying upon our holding in Fuller v. The Housing Authority of Providence, 108 R.I. 770, 279 A.2d 438 (1971), concluded that the defendant business invitor owed no duty to the plaintiff business invitee to remove snow, or ice or to sand or salt any icy areas on its premises during the ongoing storm, but could wait a reasonable time after the storm had ceased before having any duty to do so. The plaintiff's appeal followed.

In this appeal, the plaintiff contends that the defendant, by requiring her to walk some one hundred feet over unfamiliar icy terrain to retrieve her automobile, served to exacerbate the normal risk that she reasonably expected to encounter had her automobile been placed in a convenient and accessible place. She asserts that the defendant, by forcing her to walk that extended distance under dangerous icy conditions, created an "unusual circumstance." That unusual circumstance, she claims, served to revive the defendant's hitherto postponed duty under Fuller and required the defendant to take some affirmative action to alleviate the increased risk that it had created in addition to and apart from the ongoing storm.

II Analysis

"When reviewing the decision of a trial justice on a motion for judgment as a matter of law, this Court, like the trial justice, views the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and gives to that party the benefit of all reasonable and legitimate inferences that may properly be drawn from the evidence, without weighing the evidence or assessing the credibility of the trial witnesses." Morrocco v. Piccardi 713 A.2d 250, 252-53 (R.I.1998). "If there is evidence supporting the nonmoving party's position or evidence upon which reasonable minds could differ, the jury is entitled to decide the facts, and the motion for judgment as a matter of law should be denied." Id. at 253.

As a preliminary matter, we must first determine whether any legally cognizable duty existed on the part of the defendant to the plaintiff See Kenney Manufacturing Co. v. Starkweather & Shepley, Inc., 643 A.2d 203, 206 (R.I.1994)

. "[N]o clear-cut formula for creation of a duty exists that can be mechanically applied to each and every negligence case." Id. We noted in Ferreira v. Strack 636 A.2d 682 (R.I.1994) that:

"In the past this court has recognized the difficulty of crafting a workable test to determine whether a duty exists in a particular case. * * * (`[T]he problem of duty is as broad as the whole law of negligence, and * * * no universal test for it ever has been formulated') * * *. This court has avoided `definitively commit[ting] itself to [a specific] * * * analytical approach' and has instead adopted an ad hoc approach of considering all relevant factors. * * * ([T]he test to determine duty `remains nebulous'). We recognize that the factors utilized in a particular case should reflect considerations of public policy, as well as notions of fairness." Id. at 685.

Consequently, on the particular circumstances of this case, the first issue we address is whether the defendant owed the plaintiff any duty to maintain in a reasonably safe condition that portion of its premises over which it directed the plaintiff to walk. In addressing that issue, we premise our considerations upon the defendant's actions in placing the plaintiff's vehicle where it had, because we believe that such action determines the scope of any duty owed to the plaintiff. See Haynesworth v. D.H. Stevens Co., 645 A.2d 1095, 1098 (D.C.App.1994)

.

In this case, we pick up from where we left off in Fuller. In Fuller we abandoned our earlier holding in Pomfret v. Fletcher, 99 R.I. 452, 208 A.2d 743 (1965),¹ wherein we had adopted the snow and ice facet of landlord and tenant law as espoused in the so-called no duty/no-liability Massachusetts Rule, and instead, opted for the so-called Connecticut Rule, conceived in Reardon v. Shimelman, 102 Conn. 383, 128 A. 705 (1925). Fuller, 108 R.I. at 774, 279 A.2d at 441.

In adopting the Connecticut Rule, with specific reference to a landlord-tenant situation, we acknowledged that while a landlord "is not a guarantor for the safety of his [or her] tenants," the landlord does have a duty to reasonably maintain those portions of the premises "reserved for the common use of his [or her] tenants" and can be held "liable for injuries sustained by his [or her] tenant which are due to * * * an accumulation" of snow and ice. Fuller 108 R.I. at 774, 279 A.2d at 441. However, we added that the landlord's duty during an ongoing storm was suspended and the landlord "must be given a reasonable time after the storm has ceased to remove the accumulation of snow or ice found on the common ways or to take such measures as will make the common areas reasonably safe * * *." Id. In short, we simply provided that during a snow storm, a landlord has no immediate duty to shovel snow, or remove or salt and sand ice, because such duty is postponed for at least a reasonable period after the storm has abated. Id.

In this case, we do not have before us a landlord-tenant situation; rather, we have that of a business invitor and its business invitee involved in a situation in which the invitee fell and was injured on the business premises during an ongoing snow and freezing sleet storm. We believe in such a case, the business invitor, like the landlord, is not a guarantor for the safety of those persons who might be expected to come upon its property. However, as we know, the business invitor does have a duty to maintain the business premises in a reasonably safe condition for the purpose of the invitations that are made to the prospective business invitees. See O'Brien v. State, 555 A.2d 334, 338 (R.I.1989)

; Shea v. First National Stores, Inc., 63 R.I. 85, 7 A.2d 196 (1939).

The question that then presents itself to us in this case is two-fold. First, does the Connecticut Rule apply to a business invitor/business invitee situation? Second, is the business invitor's duty to maintain in a reasonably safe condition those portions of the business premises that are expected to be used by its business invitees postponed during a snow or ice storm? We believe that both questions should be answered in the affirmative, tempered however, with the caveat expressed in Fuller that the business invitor is given a reasonable time after the storm has ceased to remove the accumulation of any snow or ice or to take some such measures as will make the owner's premises "safe from the hazards arising from such a condition." Fuller 108 R.I. at 774, 279 A.2d at 441. Accordingly, we continue to follow the Connecticut Rule as intended by Fuller.²

However, the Connecticut Rule, as it has been both recognized and explained in its place of origin, is somewhat more expansive than as initially referenced by this Court in Fuller. The actual and complete Connecticut Rule permits a landlord, or in this case the business invitor, to "await a reasonable time after the end of a storm to clear snow and ice `only in the absence of unusual circumstances.'" Cooks v. O'Brien Properties, Inc., 48 Conn. App. 339, 710 A.2d 788, 792 (1998) (quoting Kraus v. Newton 211 Conn. 191, 558 A.2d 240, 243 (1989)). (Emphasis added.) In Cooks the defendant there had requested a jury instruction as follows:

"If you find that the plaintiff fell during an ongoing storm of freezing rain, sleet and/or snow, and that the ice or snow caused the fall, then you must find for the defendants." Cooks, 710 A.2d at 792.

That requested instruction mirrors the defendant's argument in this case and is precisely the reason given by the trial justice in granting the...