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Flores v. Simmons3/23/2000
district court that the appellees should have known of the defect. Our law is clear that a landlord may not be held liable for injuries sustained by tenants or their guests for latent defects unless such defects were known to the landlord or should have been known by the landlord. Medlock v. Van Wagner, 625 P.2d 207, 208-09 (Wyo. 1981). Flores presses the limits of arguing in the alternative by suggesting that, if the defect was not latent, it was patent. Of course, that argument is self-defeating because a tenant is required to take suitable precautions in the face of a patent defect. Ortega v. Flaim, 902 P.2d 199, 204 (Wyo. 1995). In addition, we note that one of the provisions of the rental agreement was: AThe Tenant states that they have personally checked the premises and accept them in their present condition and deem rental home to be safe.@ Once again, the only evidence before the trial court from both Flores and the appellees was that the faulty step was not patently obvious. The trial court correctly determined there was no genuine issue of fact about this.
Flores also contends that the faulty steps which were, for all intents and purposes, Aattached@ to the mobile home and were used only by the tenants and their guests for the purpose of entering the door to the home, were a Acommon area@ over which the landlord maintained control and, therefore, the appellees owed a special duty. See Lyden v. Winer, 878 P.2d 516, 518-20 (Wyo. 1994). There are absolutely no evidentiary materials in the record to support this contention. The district cour's decision in this regard is sound.
We make one final observation with regard to Flore' contentions. In important part, she grounds her Atheory@ in this appeal on Mostert, 741 P.2d 1090. That case involved the tragic death of Moster's daughter when the vehicle in which she was riding was engulfed by flood waters after she left a Cheyenne movie theater without being warned by the theater that the National Weather Service, civil defense authorities, and local law enforcement officials had issued severe thunderstorm, flash flood, and tornado warnings for the Cheyenne area. 741 P.2d at 1091. Flore' attempts to equate the circumstances of that case with this one, or to make an analogous argument from it, are, at best, baffling.
The appellees ask us to consider the exculpatory clause language in the lease as a second ground for affirming the district court. The district court declined to apply that provision of the contract, and there appears to be good reason for that. In any event, analysis of that issue is unnecessary to our disposition of this case, and we decline to address it.
The summary judgment of the district court is affirmed in all respects.
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