Cox ex rel. Cox v. Gros

360 S.W.2d 691, 1962 Mo. LEXIS 631
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedSeptember 10, 1962
DocketNo. 49136
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 360 S.W.2d 691 (Cox ex rel. Cox v. Gros) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cox ex rel. Cox v. Gros, 360 S.W.2d 691, 1962 Mo. LEXIS 631 (Mo. 1962).

Opinion

BARRETT, Commissioner.

This is an action to recover $35,000 damages for personal injuries sustained by Dennis Cox, age five. The trial court sustained a motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s petition and the question upon this appeal is whether the petition states a claim upon which relief could be granted.

In general the petition alleges that the defendant Gros owned and operated a business at 3009-3011 Missouri Avenue known as Gros Marble Company and that on July 10, 1959, Dennis was injured “on a piece of cut, sharp, pointed and jagged marble, created and maintained by defendant.” While the plaintiff asserts that he was a “gratuitous licensee” (2 Restatement, Torts, Sec. 331; 2 Harper & James, Torts, Sec. 27.8, p. 1470) on the defendant’s property, he admits that the case stated in his amended petition does not state a claim upon which relief could be granted under the “hard-by” rule (2 Restatement, Torts, Sec. 369), for example, broken glass on an unauthorized private dump hard-by public alleys and lanes. Wells v. Henry W. Kuhs Realty Co., (Mo.) 269 S.W.2d 761, 47 A.L.R.2d 1038. The Wells case, incidentally, is annotated under the heading “Liability of landowner for injury or death of child caused by cut or puncture from broken glass or other sharp object” in 47 A.L.R.2d 1048. The annotation does not emphasize the “hard-by” rule or section 369 of the restatement, the cases are treated without an attempt “to separate them on the basis of factual or legal distinctions. All the cases involve actions based on negligence, with its concomitant aspects of duty of care, proximate cause and contributory negligence.” Furthermore, it is conceded that his case does not fall within explosives and the inherently dangerous substance doctrine (annotation 10 A.L.R.2d 22), for ex[692]*692ample, dynamite caps abandoned at an unguarded place easily accessible to children (Boyer v. Guidicy Marble, Terrazzo & Tile Co., (Mo.) 246 S.W.2d 742) or oleum spirits left near a trash fire at an apartment house construction project. Paisley v. Liebowits, (Mo.) 347 S.W.2d 178. In the latter case attention was specifically called to the fact that the basis of the landowner’s liability in the dangerous explosive cases was “ ‘not an extension of the “attractive nuisance” doctrine. It may involve some of the basic considerations which prompted the “attractive nuisance” doctrine, but it is, nevertheless, a rule independent of the “attractive nuisance” doctrine.’ ” 347 S.W.2d, l. c. 183.

It is in this manner that the plaintiff’s appeal is presented; while the rules are noted and stated it is admitted that the case does not come within the hard-by rule or the dangerous substance rule, at the same time it is pointed out that those rules are exceptions to the doctrine of nonliability for injuries to trespassers and licensees under the rule that a property owner owes no duty to such persons to use reasonable care to keep his land in a reasonably safe condition for them and no duty to carry on his activities so as not to endanger them (Paisley v. Liebowits, supra; 2 Restatement, Torts, Sec. 333) and, despite the differences and distinctions, it is argued that this case does and should fall within still another and further exception to the doctrine of nonlia-bility. In this connection, in view of certain Missouri cases, there may be a serious inconsistency in the appellant’s position. As to another exception to the rule of non-liability, the attractive nuisance doctrine, the appellant admits that the case does not fall within that doctrine: “This plaintiff did not plead that the thing (marble) that caused his injury was the thing that attracted him onto defendant’s premises, so that exception would not be applicable here.” It is then admitted that this court has declined to adopt the views of sections 342 and 345 of the restatement — liability for known dangerous conditions to gratuitous licensees — but says that Anderson v. Cinnamon, 365 Mo. 304, 282 S.W.2d 445, 55 A.L.R.2d 516, and McVicar v. W. R. Arthur & Co., (Mo.) 312 S.W.2d 805 (annotated in 65 A.L.R.2d 798 under the title “Liability of owner or operator to adult trespasser in or on motor vehicle or equipment”) recognized, at least by dictum, the applicability of sections 334, 335 and 336 of the restatement (artificial conditions highly dangerous to constant trespassers upon a limited area) and urges that these rules should be extended to also include section 339 of the restatement and include and cover this case.

Section 339 has to do with the possessor of land and “harm to young children trespassing thereon caused by a structure or other artificial condition which he maintains upon the land,” under four specified conditions. 2 Restatement, Torts, Sec. 339; Doren v. Northwestern Baptist Hospital Association, 240 Minn. 181, 60 N.W.2d 361, 42 A.L.R.2d 921. The Minnesota case, incidentally, is annotated under the heading “Liability for injury to or death of child from burns caused by hot ashes, cinders, or other hot waste material.” In that annotation it was said that liability turned on “general principles of negligence law> as modified in the case of children.” 42 A.L.R.2d, l. c. 932. And in 1953 six states imposed liability on that theory and thirteen states, including Missouri, were said to reject it and only the Minnesota case mentioned section 339 of the restatement. In 44 A.L.R.2d 1253 and 64 A.L.R.2d 922, there are annotations bn the subjects of children and buildings under construction or being demolished and it is there pointed out that in only “one instance (Minnesota) liability was imposed on a contractor under the doctrine of § 339 of the Restatement of Torts, a rule closely related to, and sometimes equated with, the attractive nuisance doctrine’’ (emphasis supplied). 44 A.L.R.2d l. c. 1254. In 145 A.L.R. 322 there is an annotation “Liability, under attractive nui-[693]*693sanee doctrine or related principle, for injury to children jumping or falling from nondefective and stationary object or structure reached by climbing.” It is there pointed out that there is no liability under either the attractive nuisance doctrine or “a kindred principle,” section 339 of the restatement, “for an injury to a trespassing child who climbs upon and jumps or falls from a nondefective and stationary structure, at least where the structure is useful and properly located.” 145 A.L.R., l. c. 323. Harper, James and Prosser are all of the view, apparently, that the basis of liability under section 339 of the restatement is not alone the attractive nuisance doctrine, but “the more flexible test of negligence which would balance these competing interests (the landowner’s and the child’s) on a case to case basis” and the four elements set forth in the restatement. 2 Harper & James, Torts, Sec. 27.5, pp. 1450-1460; Prosser, Torts, Sec. 76, p. 440.

Now, to return to the appellant’s inconsistency and perhaps his insuperable difficulty. Whatever section 339 of the restatement may mean, in 1939 in Hull v. Gillioz, 344 Mo. 1227, 1234-1235, 130 S.W.2d 623, 627, in State ex rel. W. E. Callahan Const. Co. v. Hughes, 348 Mo.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Crawford v. Pacific Western Mobile Estates, Inc.
548 S.W.2d 216 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1977)
Nesmith v. Starr
155 S.E.2d 24 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 1967)
Thieret v. Hoel
412 S.W.2d 127 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1967)
Baker v. PRAVER AND SONS, INC
361 S.W.2d 667 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1962)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
360 S.W.2d 691, 1962 Mo. LEXIS 631, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cox-ex-rel-cox-v-gros-mo-1962.