Six Flags
Am., L.P., No. 1620, 2020 WL 7392793,
Opinion by Berger, J.
On December 16, 2020, the Maryland
Court of Special Appeals held that a trial court’s rejection of the defendant’s
request for jury instructions regarding the “open and obvious doctrine”
constituted reversible error.
On July 22, 2015, Daniel
Gomez-Gonzalez (a minor) visited a Six Flags amusement park where he was
injured after he fell while crossing a wet wooden pedestrian bridge near one of
the park’s water rides. Six Flags Am., L.P., No. 1620, 2020 WL 7392793 at
*1. His mother filed a complaint stating
that Six Flags:
[A]llowed water from a water ride in
the amusement park, which it knew or should have known would and did continuously splash and accumulate water on the floor
of the walkway of a nearby wooden
bridge, which was constantly wet and dangerously slippery when wet . . . which
created a dangerous slipping/tripping
hazard on the walkway of the wooden bridge.
Id.
Six Flags, in a motion for summary
judgment, argued that because the wet and slippery conditions of the bridge
were open and obvious, there was no duty for them to warn or cure the dangerous
conditions. Id. The Circuit Court for Prince George’s
County, however, denied Six Flags’ motion for summary judgment. Id.
Nevertheless, Six Flags requested
that “the open and obvious defense issue be presented to the jury via a
specific question on the verdict sheet.” Id.
at *3. Specifically, Jury
Instruction No. 24 stated, “there is no obligation to protect an invitee
against conditions or dangers which are known or which are so obvious and
apparent that one may reasonably be expected to discover them.” Id. at *6. Additionally,
Jury Instruction No. 25 stated, “the owner or occupier of land has no duty
under the law to warn an invitee of an open, obvious, and present danger and it
is well established under Maryland law that an invitee harmed by an open and
obvious condition is ordinarily not entitled to any recover for his injuries.” Id. Ultimately
the trial court denied this request as well.
On appeal, the Court of Special
Appeals reviewed the denial of Six Flags’ requested jury instructions by
considering the following: “(1) whether the requested
instruction was a correct statement of law; (2) whether
it was applicable under the facts of the case; and (3) whether it was fairly covered in the instructions actually
given.” Id. at *7.
Here, the
Court of Special Appeals found that Jury Instructions
No. 24 and No. 25 were nearly verbatim quotes from well accepted case law
on the subject matter of the open and obvious defense; therefore, they could
not be considered inaccurate statements of law.[1] Id. at *8. Next, the Court found
that based on their review of the record, including the fact that witnesses for
both sides presented testimony regarding whether they were able to perceive the
wet condition of the bridge, Jury Instructions No. 24 and No. 25 were generated
by the evidence presented at trial. Id. The jury instructions at trial only
instructed the jury to negligence, proximate cause, contributory negligence,
assumption of risk, invitee status, and premise liability. Id. at *7. The
Court therefore found that the open and obvious defense was not fairly
covered. Id. Ultimately, the Court
found the trial court abused its discretion by failing to instruct the jury regarding
the open and obvious doctrine. Id. at *9.
In
conclusion, a landowner has a duty to protect an invitee from injury caused by
an unreasonable risk that the invitee would be unlikely to perceive in the
exercise of ordinary care for their own safety.
However, an invitee has a duty to exercise caution in the face of an
open and obvious dangerous condition. Therefore,
the safety of an invitee does not depend solely on the landowner when there are
dangerous conditions that are open and obvious.
-Robert
Merrifield, IV, Law Clerk
