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Jacobs v. Gateway Property Management4/28/2005
open and obvious. The following exchange took place when Jacobs was deposed:
Q: So your kitchen floor was continuously wet before for three to four months before April 2000?
A: Yes, Sir.
Q: And you put newspaper down to deal with that?
A: Yes, sir. I had no choice. I had no other way of fixing the pipes.
Q: I understand. The water was there, you walked in the water?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Okay. And you're aware, of course, that water is -- - you can slip and fall in water, correct?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Even knowing that, you continued to walk in the water, correct?
A: I had to eat. I had to use my kitchen."
{ } The above exchange indicates Jacob was fully aware of the condition in the kitchen. An owner is under no duty to protect a person from known dangers or dangers which are so obvious and apparent that the person should reasonably be expected to discover them and protect himself from them. The rationale behind this doctrine is that the open and obvious nature of the hazard itself serves as a warning and allows the owner to reasonably expect others to discover the danger and take appropriate actions to protect themselves.
{ } The Supreme Court of Ohio continues to adhere to the open and obvious doctrine. In reaching this conclusion, the supreme court reiterated that when courts apply the rule, they must focus on the fact that the doctrine relates to the threshold issue of duty. By focusing on the duty prong of negligence, the rule properly considers the nature of the dangerous condition itself, as opposed to the nature of a plaintiff's conduct in encountering it. The fact that a plaintiff was unreasonable in choosing to encounter the danger is not what relieves the property owner of liability. Rather, it is the fact that the condition itself is so obvious that it absolves the property owner from taking any further action to protect the plaintiff.
{ } Even under the rule finding liability when a landowner should have anticipated harm caused by obvious dangers, the supreme court believes the focus is misdirected because it does not acknowledge that the condition itself is obviously hazardous and that, as a result, no liability is imposed. Consequently, where a danger is open and obvious, a landowner owes no duty of care to individuals lawfully on the premises.
{ } On the above record, we conclude the trial court properly granted summary judgment in Gateway's favor. No genuine issues of material fact remained. Jacobs failed to establish a direct and proximate causal relationship between the claimed injury and the slip and fall. Moreover, Jacobs failed to establish the duty element of his negligence action, because of the open and obvious condition of the kitchen floor at the time of the slip and fall. Accordingly, we overrule Jacobs' assigned errors.
Judgment affirmed.
COLLEEN CONWAY COONEY, J., and MICHAEL J. CORRIGAN, J., CONCUR.
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