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
[1] There were a total of four jury instructions proposed by Six Flags, however, the Court of Special Appeals found that Jury Instructions No. 26 and No. 27 were not fully or entirely supported by the authority cited by Six Flags; therefore, they stated the trial court properly excluded them.
No comments:
Post a Comment