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Ratcliff v. Rainbow Casino-Vicksburg Partnership11/1/2005
s from which a jury could conclude that a casino did not meet its obligation to maintain a reasonably safe premises. People slip and fall for many reasons - including their own negligence. The mere fact that an injury results from such a fall does not conclusively create evidence of negligence on the part of the business owner.
. Several Mississippi cases are relevant to the issues raised in this case. In one case, a motion for directed verdict was affirmed where a plaintiff had tripped over a raised threshold in a doorway. McGovern v. Scarborough, 566 So. 2d 1225, 1228 (Miss. 1990). The court held: "it is impossible to envision this doorway as creating a danger of some kind, in some way different from thousands of like doorways. . . . If this Court were to hold a jury question was made on whether this doorway was not reasonably safe, we would have to say a jury question is made as to any doorway from the street which is not on the same level as the street." Id. Similarly, in the case now before us, it is equally difficult to see how the stool in question created a danger different from thousands of similar stools in use across the country.
. In another case, a plaintiff tripped and fell over a hand truck that the plaintiff knew was present but misjudged its actual location. This Court held that the defendant, Wal-Mart, should have been granted a directed verdict at the end of trial because " he fact that Littleton misjudged the actual location of the. . . hand truck is lamentable, yet hardly implies a breach of duty by Wal-Mart. . . . The danger was known to Littleton, and the presence of a hand truck is hardly unusual in a store like Wal-Mart. . . ." Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Littleton, 822 So. 2d 1056, 1059 ( ) (MisS.Ct. App. 2002). The presence of a stool is hardly unexpected in a casino; like the plaintiff in Littleton, Ratcliff knew that the stool was there and merely misjudged its actual location, which caused her to trip over it.
. The record clearly established that Ratcliff tripped over either her own stool or her friend's stool, which she sat next to all night. Ratcliff testified in her deposition that no Rainbow employees tampered with her stool and that the stool was where Ratcliff had herself placed it. She presented no evidence that the stool in question was dangerous, or that its location was dangerous, or that the lighting was dangerous, etc. Ratcliff has only presented evidence that there was a stool, which she tripped over. For all the reasons above, Ratcliff has failed to show any genuine issue of material fact regarding the inherent safety of the stools used by Rainbow.
(3) Requirement That All Premises Negligence Claims Go to a Jury
.Ratcliff urges this Court to create a procedural requirement whereby anytime negligence is asserted against the owner of an establishment (it is not clear whether Ratcliff intends this only for casinos or for all businesses), summary judgment is not available and the case must go to a jury, regardless of how preposterous the plaintiff's claims. There is no binding case law to support Ratcliff's contention that Mississippi should adopt this requirement, which is found only in Nevada state law. Ratcliff has presented no persuasive reason as to why Mississippi should abandon its common law requirements and the vehicle of summary judgment in premises liability cases. The potential dangers of adopting such a requirement are obvious. Summary judgment is available to help unclog already overcrowded court dockets by throwing out cases where a plaintiff is unable to show any genuine issue of material fact. If summary judgment were to be abolished as a remedy in premises liability cases, how long before it would
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