Peculiar Risk and Retained Control Doctrines Applied in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment

In the case of Kinlaw v. Pennsylvania American Water Co., No. 17-CV-6738 (C.P. Lacka. Co. Sept. 15, 2020 Nealon, J.), Judge Terrence R. Nealon of the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas granted summary judgment in favor of the Defendants in a slip and fall case in a matter in which the Plaintiff’s attorneys had previously withdrawn from their representation of the Plaintiff and in which the pro se Plaintiff did not secure other counsel or appear at the argument on the Motion for Summary Judgment. 

According to the Opinion, this matter arose out of a slip and fall that occurred at the Elmhurst Dam in Roaring Brook Township. 

At the time of the accident, the Pennsylvania American Water Company owned the dam and a Co-Defendant was a general contractor for a restoration project that was being performed on the dam. 

The general contractor had hired Century Security Systems as an independent contractor to provide security at the dam site. The Plaintiff alleged that she was working for Century Security Systems as a security guard at the dam when she slipped and fell as she exited her vehicle. 

Before the court was a Motion for Summary Judgment filed by the Pennsylvania American Water Company and the general contractor in which it was asserted that the Plaintiff’s work location and conditions were controlled exclusively by her employer, Century Security Services, and that, as such, liability could not be imposed upon the Pennsylvania American Water Company or the general contractor under either the “retained control” or the “peculiar risk” doctrines.

After reviewing these doctrines in detail and applying the law to the facts presented, Judge Terrence R. Nealon of the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas found that the Plaintiff’s claims were barred as a matter of law. 

More specifically, the court found that there was no evidence that the Plaintiff’s fall was caused by a condition that was different from the customary risks associated with security work or that any such risk was allegedly foreseeable to the moving Defendants at the time the contract with the security company was executed. The court also noted the record lacked any evidence or even any suggestion that the moving Defendants possessed any form of superior knowledge or information would somehow place them in a better position to appreciate any risks presented by any alleged dangerous condition involved.   

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this decision may click this LINK.

If you have a trip and fall or a slip and fall matter that you would like to try to resolve before the end of the year, please consider Cummins Mediation Services.  Please contact me at 570-319-5899 or at dancummins@CumminsLaw.net.

Federal Middle District Judge Brann Reviews Peculiar Risk Exception in Landowner Slip and Fall Liability Case

Judge Matthew W. Brann of the Pennsylvania Middle District Court recently granted a Defendant's Motion to Dismiss in the slip and fall negligence case of Holt v. Lowe’s Home Centers, LLC, No. 4:15-CV-01728 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 10, 2016).  

In this case, Judge Brann ruled that a Defendant landowner could not be held liable for injuries sustained by an independent contractor’s employee when that employee slipped and fell through a snow covered greenhouse roof that the contractor was hired to clear.  

At the outset of his Opinion, Judge Brann outlined the stricter "plausibility" standard of review for federal court motions to dismiss enunciated by decisions in recent years by the Chief Justice Roberts-led U.S. Supreme Court. 

The court noted that the records confirmed that the contractors retained by Lowe's, one of which designed, manufactured and manufactured greenhouses of the type at issue, obviously knew of the existence of the snow, and also know of the possible structural damage to the area where the Plaintiff fell through the greenhouse roof.  

Judge Matthew W. Brann
M.D. Pa.

 

Judge Brann reaffirmed that a landowner will not be held vicariously liable for the negligent acts of an independent contractor hired to perform work on the land.  The court rejected the Plaintiff's request for the application of the Peculiar Risk Exception to this general rule of non-liability

The court found that there was no peculiar risk or special danger presented by the facts of this matter.   Judge Brann stated that a snowy roof in winter in Pennsylvania did not amount to a peculiar risk as that term is identified under the law.

Judge Brann also held that it could not be a peculiar risk in that the premises owner did not have any duty to inspect as that duty had been contractually assumed by the contractor.

Judge Brann also supported his decision to dismiss the matter by asserting that the record did not prove causation attributable to Lowe's as the possessor of land.   In this regard, the court noted that the Plaintiff’s injury was caused, in part, by the failure to use safety equipment and that that failure was under the contractor’s responsibility and not the landowners.  

Anyone wishing to review Judge Brann's notable decision in the Holt case may click HERE

I send thanks to Attorney James M. Beck of the Philadelphia office of Reed Smith Law Firm.   Please be sure to check out Attorney Beck’s excellent blog, the Drug and Device Law Blog.