Sheppard v. Crow-Barker-Paul No. 1 Ltd. Partnership

968 P.2d 612, 192 Ariz. 539, 273 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 45, 1998 Ariz. App. LEXIS 119
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedJuly 14, 1998
Docket1 CA-CV 97-0394
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 968 P.2d 612 (Sheppard v. Crow-Barker-Paul No. 1 Ltd. Partnership) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sheppard v. Crow-Barker-Paul No. 1 Ltd. Partnership, 968 P.2d 612, 192 Ariz. 539, 273 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 45, 1998 Ariz. App. LEXIS 119 (Ark. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

FIDEL, Presiding Judge.

¶ 1 A minor guest sustained personal injuries at the Safari Hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona, from the shattering of a plate glass panel in a sliding door. The hotel owner, Appellant Crow-Barker-Paul Limited Partnership (“Safari”), appeals from an adverse judgment and asks us to grant either judgment notwithstanding the verdict, new trial, or remittitur. Safari also asks us to reverse the trial court’s imposition of sanctions arising from its rejection of an offer of judgment.

¶ 2 In the course of our opinion, we consider what duties may arise when a hotel owner maintains plate glass doors in use that were installed before the enactment of legislation requiring safety glass in future installations. We differentiate the owner’s statutory and common-law duty under such circumstances, consider whether the jury was adequately instructed on each, and consider whether the evidence permitted the conclusion that Safari had violated its common-law duty of care.

¶ 3 We also consider whether a parent who brings an action on his minor child’s *542 behalf for personal injuries and on his own behalf for medical treatment to the child may combine those claims in a single offer of judgment or must differentiate them in separate offers in order to take advantage of the offer of judgment rule.

¶4 We also consider whether the trial court properly handled what it treated as a spurious foundational objection when it permitted the proponent of the challenged evidence to amend the pretrial statement to add a foundational witness.

¶ 5 Finding no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s rulings on these or other issues, we affirm.

I. History

¶ 6 In July 1992, Tarik Sheppard (“Tarik”) — then fifteen years old — was playing in a basketball tournament in Scottsdale, Arizona. The members and coaches of Tarik’s team were registered guests at the Safari Hotel. Tarik was injured on the hotel premises when his teammate, Melvin Johnson, closed the sliding glass door to his. hotel room as Tarik was about to enter the room. The parties dispute whether Tarik touched the door before it shattered or was merely reaching for the handle. The parties also dispute whether Johnson shut the door with ordinary or excessive force. They do not dispute that the door shattered into pieces of glass, severely lacerating Tarik’s arms.

¶ 7 Tarik’s father, Daniel Sheppard (“Sheppard”), brought this suit against Safari. 1 Because Tarik was a minor at the time, Sheppard asserted Tarik’s claim for personal injuries and his own claim for the cost of necessary medical treatment for his son.

¶ 8 Safari denied liability, alleged Tarik’s comparative fault, and named Tarik’s Mend, Melvin Johnson, as a non-party at fault. See Ariz.Rev.Stat. Ann. (“A.R.S.”) § 12-2506(B) (Supp.1997) (permitting apportionment of fault to non-parties). The case proceeded to a trial by jury and concluded in a $445,000.00 verdict in Sheppard’s favor; the jury assigned Safari 100% of the fault.

¶ 9 Before trial, Sheppard had filed, and Safari had declined to accept, an offer of judgment pursuant to Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 68:

[Plaintiff], by and through his attorneys undersigned, ... offers to allow Judgment to be taken by [Plaintiff] against [Defendant] in the amount of Two Hundred Forty-Nine Thousand Five Hundred ($249,-500.00) Dollars, plus court costs accrued to date, and for which [Plaintiff] must prepare and file a Satisfaction of Judgment in favor of [Defendant].

¶ 10 The Mai court entered formal judgment for Sheppard in the amount of $560,-937.96 on February 20, 1997; the judgment included the jury verdict, taxable costs of $8,790.23, and sanctions of $107,147.73 arising from Safari’s failure to accept the offer of judgment. Safari moved alternatively for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or new trial/remittitur, the trial court denied these motions, and Safari filed a timely appeal from both the judgment and the denial of its post-trial motions.

II. Duty to Install Safety Glass

¶ 11 Safari argues that, in a misleading and incomplete jury instruction, the trial court wrongly suggested that Safari had a pre-accident duty under the Arizona Revised Statutes or the Uniform Building Code to remove the unbroken existing glass from the sliding door in Melvin Johnson’s hotel room' — Room 249 — and “retrofit” 2 the door with safety glass. The court’s instruction was further mistaken, according to Safari, in suggesting that the violation of this duty was negligence per se. Safari further argues that, in the absence of evidence that it had notice of a dangerous condition in Room 249, it had no common-law duty to replace the glass, and that the court thus erred in deny *543 ing its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

A. Supplemental Background

¶ 12 To place these arguments in context, we provide some further background:

¶ 18 In 1956, when the Safari Hotel was built, the Arizona Revised Statutes neither required safety glass nor proscribed plate glass in hotel sliding doors.

¶ 14 As of July 1, 1974, with the enactment of a set of safety glazing statutes, see A.R.S. §§ 36-1631 to -1635 (1993), the Arizona Legislature made it unlawful to install any form of glass other than safety glass in hazardous locations in public buildings, including hotel and motel sliding doors. See A.R.S. §§ 36-1631(1), -1631(3), -1633. The safety glazing statute, however, does not impose a statutory duty to retrofit pre-1974 installations with safety glass. See Piccola v. Woodall, 186 Ariz. 307, 311, 921 P.2d 710, 714 (App.1996). 3

¶ 15 After Tarik’s accident, the Safari Hotel staff discarded the broken glass from the sliding door in Room 249, preserving none for later expert examination. Nor is there a record of the year in which that doorpane was installed. Upon the basis of witness descriptions of the broken glass, however, Safari’s expert witness, Edward Beers, offered the opinion that the pane was made of safety glass and may have been installed as recently as a week before the accident.- In contrast, Sheppard’s expert, Arthur Freedman, concluded from witness descriptions of the glass and from the nature of Tarik’s cuts that the pane was made of annealed (plate) glass, not safety glass.

¶ 16 As of 1973, the Uniform Building Code (“UBC”) established safety glass standards comparable to those embodied in AR.S. §§ 36-1631 to -1633. On direct examination, Freedman testified without objeetion that, pursuant to UBC standards, “annealed glass is an unsafe material” in a sliding door.

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

Related

State v. Rondan
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2019
Day v. Armendt
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2017
Wetherilt v. Moore
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2017
Desert Palm Surgical Group, P.L.C. v. Petta
343 P.3d 438 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2015)
Nold v. Nold
304 P.3d 1093 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2013)
Higgins v. Assmann Electronics, Inc.
173 P.3d 453 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2007)
In Re Andrew C.
160 P.3d 687 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2007)
Smyser v. City of Peoria
160 P.3d 1186 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2007)
Girouard v. Skyline Steel, Inc.
158 P.3d 255 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2007)
Felder v. Physiotherapy Associates
158 P.3d 877 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2007)
Short v. Petty
139 P.3d 621 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2006)
Acuna v. Kroack
128 P.3d 221 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2006)
Acuna v. Hampton And Kroack
Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2006
Ceimo v. General American Life Insurance
137 F. App'x 968 (Ninth Circuit, 2005)
Smethers v. Campion
108 P.3d 946 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2005)
Gamez v. Brush Wellman, Inc.
34 P.3d 375 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2001)
Haralson v. Fisher Surveying, Inc.
31 P.3d 114 (Arizona Supreme Court, 2001)
Ogden v. J.M. Steel Erecting, Inc.
31 P.3d 806 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2001)
Vega v. Sullivan
19 P.3d 645 (Court of Appeals of Arizona, 2001)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
968 P.2d 612, 192 Ariz. 539, 273 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 45, 1998 Ariz. App. LEXIS 119, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sheppard-v-crow-barker-paul-no-1-ltd-partnership-arizctapp-1998.