Green v. Dalewood Property Owner's Association, Inc.
| Docket Number: | 2004-CA-00700-COA Linked Case(s): 2004-CT-00700-SCT2004-CA-00700-COA |
|
| Oral Argument: | 03-10-2005 | |
* This video is best viewed in the most current version of Google Chrome, Internet Explorer with Windows Media Player plug-in, or Safari (Mac Users). |
||
| Court of Appeals: |
Opinion Link Opinion Date: 06-28-2005 Opinion Author: LEE, P.J. Holding: Affirmed in Part, Reversed in Part, Remand in part |
|
| Additional Case Information: |
Topic: Personal injury - Premises liability - Willful or wanton injury - Duty to invitee - Superseding intervening cause - M.R.C.P. 56 - Nonmoving party Judge(s) Concurring: KING, C.J., BRIDGES, P.J., IRVING, MYERS, CHANDLER, BARNES AND ISHEE, JJ. Non Participating Judge(s): GRIFFIS, J. Procedural History: Summary Judgment Nature of the Case: CIVIL - PERSONAL INJURY |
|
| Trial Court: |
Date of Trial Judgment: 03-08-2004 Appealed from: Lauderdale County Circuit Court Judge: Robert Bailey Disposition: SUMMARY JUDGMENT TO LANDOWNER Case Number: 02-CV-100(B) |
|
| Party Name: | Attorney Name: | |||
| Appellant: | DANNY P. GREEN, LINA L. GREEN AND DARRELL
LEE BRACKNEL |
FRANK H. SHAW, JENNIFER P. BURKES |
||
| Appellee: | DALEWOOD PROPERTY OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION, INC. | DONNA MEEHAN TANKERSLEY, HOLMES S. ADAMS, WILLIAM C. BRABEC, GREGORY MALTA |
|
|
Synopsis provided by:  If you are interested in subscribing to the weekly synopses of all Mississippi Supreme Court and Court of Appeals hand downs please contact Tammy Upton in the MLI Press office. |
|
| Topic: | Personal injury - Premises liability - Willful or wanton injury - Duty to invitee - Superseding intervening cause - M.R.C.P. 56 - Nonmoving party |
| Summary of the Facts: | Danny Green and Lina Green own a lot at Dalewood Lake and are members of Dalewood Property Owners’ Association. Under Dalewood’s rules, only members, their children and guests who had registered with Dalewood were allowed to access the lake and the other Dalewood facilities. During the weekend of July 4, 2000, the Greens and Darrell Bracknell were aboard the Greens’s pontoon boat to view a fireworks show at the lake. Clifton Woods, who was intoxicated and driving his bass boat between forty and eighty miles per hour, collided with the Greens’s pontoon boat, causing injury to the Greens and Bracknell. Woods was not a member of Dalewood, and although he had registered as a guest with the association earlier in the weekend, his guest pass had expired days prior to the accident. Bracknell was not registered with the association as a guest. Bracknell and the Greens filed suit against Dalewood and Woods, alleging that both Dalewood and Woods were negligent. Dalewood filed a motion for summary judgment which the court granted. The Greens and Bracknell appeal. |
| Summary of Opinion Analysis: | Dalewood argues that Bracknell could be classified as a trespasser because he was not registered as a guest in conformity with the association’s regulations. Regardless of his classification as either a licensee or a trespasser, Dalewood’s duty to Bracknell was to refrain from willfully or wantonly injuring him. To constitute willful or wanton injury, something more is required to impose liability than mere inadvertence or lack of attention; there must be a more or less extreme departure from ordinary standards of care, and conduct must differ in quality, as well as in degree, from ordinary negligence involving a conscious disregard of a known serious danger. Bracknell has not shown that Dalewood breached this duty. Although Dalewood did not remove Woods from the property after his guest pass had expired, Bracknell has not shown that Dalewood’s lack of attention differs from ordinary negligence, and Bracknell has failed to show that Dalewood willfully and wantonly injured him. With regard to the status of the Greens, they are invitees since Dalewood is clearly receiving an advantage in the form of membership dues paid by the Greens. Accordingly, Dalewood owed the Greens the duty to keep the premises reasonably safe and when not reasonably safe to warn only where there is hidden danger or peril that is not plain and open view. From the record, there are a number of questions to be presented to the jury. Did Dalewood fail to keep the premises reasonably safe in not preventing Woods from bringing his own boat into the Dalewood area when he checked in as a visitor? Did Dalewood act reasonably in not removing Woods from the lake during the holiday weekend, especially when the record indicates that during the holiday weekend Dalewood security was within fifteen feet of Woods and his boat? Additionally, were Dalewood’s actions reasonable considering the location and layout of the house used by Dalewood to register guests? Therefore, summary judgment on the issue of Dalewood’s negligence was premature. Bracknell and the Greens also argue that summary judgment was improper because the existence of an intervening and superseding cause should have been a question of fact for the jury. The court found that Woods’ negligence was a superseding and intervening cause which relieved Dalewood of all liability. A superseding cause is an act of a third person or other force which by its intervention prevents the actor from being liable for harm to another which his antecedent negligence is a substantial factor in bringing about. The question of superseding intervening cause is so inextricably tied to causation, it is difficult to imagine a circumstance where such issue would not be one for the trier of fact. Therefore, the finding that Woods’ action was a superseding and intervening cause was also premature. On cross-appeal, Dalewood argues that the court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the Greens regarding Dalewood’s negligence. Dalewood argues that because neither of the parties requested a finding regarding Dalewood’s negligence, the circuit court erred in ruling that Dalewood breached its duty to exercise reasonable care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition. The grant of summary judgment for the nonmoving party clearly is proper if both sides agree that there are no material fact issues and join in the request that the case be decided, for the moving or the nonmoving side, on the basis of a motion for judgment made by only one of them. In utilizing M.R.C.P. 56, Dalewood consented to the possibility that summary judgment could be rendered for the Greens and Bracknell, without the necessity of a cross-motion requesting such relief. |
Home | Terms of Use | About the JDP | Feedback | Using JDP | MC Law Library | Mississippi Supreme Court
