Bishop v. STEWART
Bishop v. STEWART
Opinion of the Court
The trial court sustained a demurrer to the declaration, the plaintiff declined to plead further, the suit was dismissed, and plaintiff-appellant appeals.
The declaration alleges that appellant lives 1000 feet north of the City of Hazlehurst, Mississippi, on the west side of Highway 51. Her husband operates a cafe, service station, and tourist court on the south end of a large commercial lot which lies adjacent to and south of appellant’s home lot, the two lots being separated by a row of short posts. The area of the commercial lot between the plaintiff’s home lot and the business establishments is vacant and graveled. For five years prior to August 21, 1957, plaintiff frequently passed from her home to her husband’s business establishments, both in the daytime and at night, to assist her
In view of the conclusions we have reached, it is not necessary to decide whether the appellees were guilty of simple negligence under the allegations of the declaration. We assume, without deciding, that they were. But the declaration does not attempt to charge wilful or wanton negligence.
Since no one disputes that the law is as just stated, the only problem in this case is to determine whether the relationship of the appellant to appellees and the premises occupied by appellees is such as to bring the case within the rule. This presents two questions: (1) Whether appellees were such occupants of the premises used by them as to entitle them to invoke the rule, and (2) whether appellant was a licensee.
The declaration alleges that appellees stored several large truck loads of pipe on the vacant portion of the commercial lot whereon appellant’s husband operated his business enterprises, and that the appellees “were in charge of so much of the premises of F. L. Bishop as the pipe and equipment stored there by them occupied.” The appellees were occupiers of the premises to the extent in area that the pipe and equipment covered. They occupied these premises with permission; the occupancy was lawful.
It is not pertinent to the issue to determine the kind of estate appellees had in the premises occupied by them. It is said on good authority that “Ordinarily, in the absence of a statute fixing a different rule, the occupation of premises without rent and without any certain and definite term being fixed, gives rise to a tenancy at will.” Thompson on Real Property, Sec. 1023. But a tenancy at will and a license to occupy, while not identical because a license confers no title or interest in the
“An occupant entitled to invoke the rule need not be an owner or lessee of the premises.” 38 Am. Jur., Negligence, Sec. 104. See Anno., 90 A. L. R. 886. There seems to be no authority holding that the extent of the area occupied has any bearing on the question. On the other hand, one permitting, but not inviting, the use of a specific item of equipment, such as a scaffold, has been held entitled to invoke the rule. Arthur v. Standard Engineering Company, 89 App. D. C. 399, 193 F. 2d 903; 32 A. L. R. 2d 408. Other cases holding that the lawful occupier may invoke the rule are Soles v. Ohio-Edison Company, 144 Ohio St. 373, 59 N. E. 2d 138; Lindholm v. Northwestern Pac. R. R. Co., 79 Cal. App. 34, 248 Pac. 1033; Helvich v. George A. Rutherford Co., 96 Ohio App. 367, 114 N. E. 2d 514; and McCann v. Thilemann, 72 N. Y. S. 1076.
We conclude that, inasmuch as appellees were the lawful occupants of that portion of the lot used in storing the pipe and other equipment, they are entitled to invoke the rule that they owe no duty to a licensee except not to harm him wilfully or wantonly.
In resolving the question whether appellant was a licensee when she went upon the premises occupied by appellees, it must be kept in mind that her status is determined by her relationship to appellees and the premises they were occupying and not by her relationship to her husband and the property used in his businesses. It confuses the issue to say that, since she was crossing her husband’s lot to reach her husband’s place of business on the south side of the lot
“A licensee is broadly defined as a person who enters upon the property of another for his own convenience, pleasure, or benefit.” 38 Am. Jur., Negligence, Sec. 104. In Cato v. Crystal Ice Company, 109 Miss. 590, 68 So. 853, the Court said: “In this instance, it is not contended that the plaintiff was invited, or that he had any business with the defendant which would give him a legal right to go on the premises.”
Invitees are in a more favored position with reference to the duties and liabilities of the owner or or occupier than are licensees and trespassers. There is no allegation the appellant was invited, either directly or impliedly, to go upon the part of the lot occupied by appellees. On the other hand, the declaration plainly shows that she did so for her own convenience solely. Cf. Yazoo & MV. R. Co. v. Mansfield, supra, and Craves v. Massey, supra.
We conclude that appellant was a licensee.
It should be noted that this case is not one involving a dangerous pitfall or trap, nor one where the possessor or occupier of land creates or maintains thereon an excavation or other artificial condition so near an existing public roadway or other public way, so as to endanger persons traveling the public way. See Standard Oil Co. v. Decell, 175 Miss. 251, 166 So. 379.
We recognize the rule that close and doubtful questions of law and right should not be settled on demur
Affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
Dissenting:
I regret that I am unable to agree with the controlling opinion rendered in this case, but I feel justified in dissenting therefrom because of the unusual factual situation disclosed by the declaration of the plaintiff which I think sufficiently states a cause of action against the defendants.
The declaration alleged that the plaintiff lived on the northern most of two lots owned by her husband fronting on the west side of IT. S. Highway 51 just north of the corporate limits of the City of Hazlehurst, that on the southern end of the lot to the south the said F. L. Bishop owned and operated three commercial enterprises to-wit: A cafe, filling station and small tourist court, with the assistance of the plaintiff, Mrs. F. L. Bishop; that there was a plainly visible and well-traveled path between the dwelling house and the commercial buildings which had been used regularly for about five years; that the defendant, United Gas Corporation, obtained permission from the owner of the commercial lot to store some %” steel pipe on the unused portion thereof and that on the 19th day of August 1957, the defendant, Cecil Stewart, a local resident of Copiah County, acting for and on behalf of the defendant, Louisiana-Mississippi Pipe Line Construction Corporation, and individually, unloaded several large trucks loaded with steel pipe of various sizes and lengths,
Elsewhere in the declaration it is alleged that “the portion of said path passing over the yard of her dwelling house is well worn and is noticeably heavily traveled up to the point where it enters the vacant graveled portion of the commercial lot upon which the business of her husband is located. ’ ’ In effect the declaration alleged that the stack of pipes onto which tthe plaintiff fell was placed along the northern boundary of the commercial lot so as to negligently block the pathway which the plaintiff alleges that she had been using for a period of five years in going from the residence to the commercial places of business to assist her husband in the operation thereof, and that on the occasion in question had started to the tourist court with the bottle of “pine-sol” to clean up one of the rooms therein. This is an allegation of active negligence and not of passive negligence; it charges an act of commission, and not merely of omission insofar as the “blocking of the pathway” is concerned.
It is not claimed that the defendants, United Gas Corporation, Louisiana-Mississippi Pipe Line Construe
It is contended by the defendants that the plaintiff was a mere licensee on the premises of her husband and especially as to the particular spot being occupied by the defendants where they had located and stacked the pipes and blocked the pathway which the plaintiff was undertaking to use.
But if it be conceded that the plaintiff was a mere licensee along with all of the defendants, then there is presented the question as to whether or not the defendant licensees had the right to negligently cause injury to the plaintiff licensee.
The trial court sustained demurrers on behalf of each of the defendants, and the plaintiff, having declined to plead further, the suit was dismissed. It is from that action of the trial court that this appeal is taken.
Section 1464, Code of 1942 relating to the sufficiency of a declaration provides: “The declaration shall contain a statement of the facts constituting the cause of action, in ordinary and concise language, without repetition ; and if it contains sufficient matter of substance for the court to proceed upon the merits of the cause, it shall be sufficient; and it shall not be an objection to maintaining any action that the form thereof should have been different.” (Italics ours)
The jury would be entitled to consider the fact that the defendants either knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, that the permission granted to them by the owner of the lot to stack piles
It is held in the case of Ross v. Louisville and N. R. Company, 178 Miss. 69, 172 So. 752, that facts which are reasonably and necessarily implied from facts stated must on demurrer be considered as true, and when such facts, together with express averments, furnish sufficient matter of substance for court to proceed on merits, and a meritorious case under applicable law is thus presented, demurrer is unavailing.
In Griffith’s Mississippi Chancery Practice, Second Edition, 1950, Sec. 312 at page 297 the principle here involved is succinctly stated as follows: “In accordance with the trend of modern judicial opinion it has been definitely established as a rule by our latest cases that attempt should not be made to settle close and difficult questions of law and right on a demurrer. If the demurrer raise merely a doubtful question or if the case be such that the cause of justice will probably be promoted by a determination of the ultimate right only on answer and proof, the court ought to exercise a fair judicial discretion to that end, although it may be that in technical point the grounds of the demurrer are sustainable in strict law. * * *”
Under the facts alleged no citation of authorities is necessary to support the theory of the plaintiff that the defendants should have reasonably anticipated and foreseen that some injury would probably result from their action in negligently blocking the pathway in question. It was not necessary that the defendant should have reasonably anticipated that the lady would break her bottle of “pine-sol” and cut her hand and sustain an injury in the manner alleged in this declaration but un
Where a wife has continually used a pathway from her residence in going to the commercial enterprises of her husband to assist him in the operation thereof, and he has acquiesed in that practice for a period of five years, no invitation was necessary from him on the particular occasion of this accident, and in the case at bar we have the unusual situation of defendants who are themselves mere licensees invoking the defense that the only duty that they owed to the invitee of the owner of the premises was not to wilfully or wantonly injure her. The circumstances relied upon to determine the technical relationship of the plaintiff and the defendants presents a case of first impression in this state under the peculiar facts and circumstances diclosed by the declaration. The writer of this opinion thinks that it would be odd to say that the wife of the owner of property is either an invitee, licensee, or trespasser. He thinks that she had the right to go across the lot of her husband to assist him in the operation of his business without an invitation from her husband or a license from the defendants who are merely exercising a permissive and temporary use of the property. The mere occupant of the premises for temporary purposes, and not under any lease from the owner, is most assuredly not entitl
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