Lopez v. Delair Group LLC

881 F. Supp. 2d 268, 2012 WL 2149913, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81020
CourtDistrict Court, D. Rhode Island
DecidedJune 12, 2012
DocketC.A. No. 10-292 S
StatusPublished

This text of 881 F. Supp. 2d 268 (Lopez v. Delair Group LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Rhode Island primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lopez v. Delair Group LLC, 881 F. Supp. 2d 268, 2012 WL 2149913, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81020 (D.R.I. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER

WILLIAM E. SMITH, District Judge.

Before the Court is Plaintiff Steven Lopez’s Objection (ECF No. 30) to the Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) of Magistrate Judge David L. Martin dated March 2, 2012 (ECF No. 29), recommending that Defendant Delair Group LLC’s Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 13) be granted. For the reasons set forth below, that recommendation is rejected, Plaintiffs objection is accepted, and Defendant’s motion is denied in part and granted in part.

In light of the undisputed fact1 that Plaintiff executed a head-first dive into a shallow, above-ground pool, the Magistrate Judge determined that the First Circuit’s holding in Sheehan v. N. Am. Mktg. Corp., 610 F.3d 144 (1st Cir.2010), should control and that Plaintiff assumed the risk of his injury as a matter of law. In Sheehan, the court was confronted with similar (but not identical) facts: the plaintiff, much like Plaintiff Lopez, argued that she did not assume the risk of injury because she believed that, while a vertical dive into shallow water was unsafe, a horizontal, flat dive into shallow water was not unsafe. Id. at 153; see also Sheehan v. N. Am. Mktg. Corp., C.A. No. OS-364 S, 2008 WL 896152, at *4 (D.R.I. Apr. 2, 2008). In Sheehan, the court held that “under Rhode Island law, there are certain risks that are so self-evident that a person will be deemed to have understood them as a matter of law. Diving head-first into a shallow, above-ground pool is such a risk, and bars recovery here.” 610 F.3d at 154-55 (emphasis added).

[270]*270In the instant case, Plaintiff was seventeen, a minor, at the time of the dive that led to his injuries. In rejecting Plaintiffs argument that Sheehan should not apply to minors, the Magistrate Judge observed that, at seventeen, Plaintiff was “just a year removed from adulthood” and that “[t]he danger of diving into a shallow, above-ground pool is as open and apparent to a seventeen year old as it is to a thirty-two year old or a twenty-four year old.” (R & R 17.)

While the First Circuit used the word “person” in its holding, the opinion contains numerous references to plaintiff Sheehan’s age and to the fact that she was an adult. For example, the Sheehan court quoted with approval comment d of the Restatement (Second) of Torts:

There are some risks as to which no adult will be believed if he says that he did not know or understand them. Thus an adult who knowingly comes in contact with a fire will not be believed if he says that he was unaware of the risk that he might be burned by it; and the same is true of such risks as those of drowning in water or falling from a height....

Id. at 152 (emphasis added) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 496D cmt. d). Applying the Restatement to the facts in Sheehan, the court went on to state that “[t]he risks of diving into shallow water fall into this category, as to which protestations of ignorance from an adult are deemed not believable.” Id. (emphasis added). The court further stated, even more specifically as to Sheehan herself, that the danger “was, or should have been, obvious to a thirty-two-year-old adult woman of normal intelligence.” Id. at 153 (emphasis added). The use of the word “person” instead of the word “adult” in the concluding paragraph of the opinion does not change the clear implication that Sheehan’s age and status as an adult were key to the court’s holding.

Moreover, the parties have not cited to, nor could the Court find, any Rhode Island case in which a minor’s assumption of the risk was determined as a matter of law, and indeed, the cases seem to point in the other direction. See, e.g., Schultz v. Foster-Glocester Reg’l Sch. Dist., 755 A.2d 153, 156 (R.I.2000) (vacating entry of summary judgment and remanding for trial on the merits relating to question of assumption of the risk by a minor); Costa v. Silva, No. 97-0426, 1999 WL 710666, at *1 (R.I.Super.Ct. May 28, 1999) (denying motion for summary judgment on assumption of risk where “no evidence that the minor Plaintiff Keith was ever warned about the dangerousness, nor is there sufficient evidence that he appreciated the risk presented” and stating that “[s]ince a subjective standard is utilized, consideration of Keith’s minority is also required”).

Furthermore, other courts applying a category of risks principle 2 similar to that [271]*271applied in Sheehan have likewise framed its application in terms that suggest that the principle should be limited to adults. See, e.g., C & M Builders, LLC v. Strub, 420 Md. 268, 22 A.3d 867, 883 (2011) (“[W]e have noted, with approval, the proposition formulated by Prosser and Keeton that ‘there are certain risks which anyone of adult age must be taken to appreciate ....’” (emphasis added) (quoting Morgan State Univ. v. Walker, 397 Md. 509, 919 A.2d 21, 25 (2007))); Goepfert v. Filler, 563 N.W.2d 140, 143 (S.D.1997) (stating that “an individual will be held to have appreciated the danger undertaken if it was a risk that no adult person of average intelligence can deny” and that plaintiff, “a twenty-two year old college student, had to know and appreciate the hazard he faced in leaping from a moving car” (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).

Finally, Plaintiff has offered the testimony of Dr. Tom Griffiths, an Aquatic Safety Specialist, who stated in his preliminary report that “the dangers and risks of poorly executed shallow dives into an above ground swimming pool are not open and obvious to the average residential swimmer, especially a minor.... ” (Ex. E to PL’s Obj. to Mot. for Summ. J., ECF No. 23-5.) This, at a minimum, creates a disputed issue of material fact as to what Plaintiff knew, or perhaps should have known, as a seventeen year old.

While it may be correct to say that a seventeen year old’s understanding of the dangers could (or should) be the same as that of an eighteen year old, the same could then be said of the understanding of a sixteen year old as compared to that of a seventeen year old, and so on. The line of demarcation between an adult and a minor is a meaningful one in the law, and one that the cases indicate Rhode Island courts respect. The Rhode Island Supreme Court’s adoption of the attractive nuisance doctrine is an explicit recognition that “[a] young child cannot, because of his immaturity and lack of judgment, be deemed to be able to perceive all the dangers he might encounter as he trespasses on the land of others.” See Haddad v. First Nat’l Stores, Inc., 109 R.I. 59, 280 A.2d 93, 96 (1971); see also id.

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Related

Sheehan v. THE NORTH AMERICAN MARKETING CORP.
610 F.3d 144 (First Circuit, 2010)
Goepfert v. Filler
1997 SD 56 (South Dakota Supreme Court, 1997)
Schultz v. Foster-Glocester Regional School District
755 A.2d 153 (Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 2000)
D'ALLESANDRO v. Tarro
842 A.2d 1063 (Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 2004)
Morgan State University v. Walker
919 A.2d 21 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 2007)
Haddad v. First National Stores, Inc.
280 A.2d 93 (Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 1971)
Klen v. Asahi Pool, Inc.
643 N.E.2d 1360 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1994)
Raimbeault v. Takeuchi Manufacturing (U.S.), Ltd.
772 A.2d 1056 (Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 2001)
C & M Builders, LLC v. Strub
22 A.3d 867 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 2011)
Klen v. Asahi Pool, Inc.
268 Ill. App. 3d 1031 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1994)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
881 F. Supp. 2d 268, 2012 WL 2149913, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81020, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lopez-v-delair-group-llc-rid-2012.