## Facts

- Rodney W. Demag worked for a car dealership and, as a customer convenience, periodically picked up and returned customers’ vehicles for service.
- For roughly ten years, Demag picked up vehicles from Better Power Equipment, Inc. (BPE) for BPE’s general manager and the manager’s wife about five to six times per year.
- In January 2009, Demag arrived at BPE for scheduled service, parked in his customary spot near the manager’s vehicle, spoke briefly with the manager, and walked back toward his own vehicle.
- Demag took a step and fell into an uncovered storm drain in BPE’s parking lot.
- Recent snowfall obscured the opening; BPE and its employees lacked actual knowledge that the cover was off. A BPE employee had plowed the area around the drain the day before.
- The general manager testified the cover had not previously come off, but he had noticed it rocked when driven over and that the surrounding concrete ring showed minor deterioration; he believed frost heave and plowing dislodged the cover.
- Under BPE’s lease, it was responsible for maintaining buildings and surface areas of the premises.
- Demag also had friendly interactions with BPE’s president and had discussed possibly purchasing equipment from BPE.

## Issues

1. Whether Vermont should retain the common-law premises-liability distinction between licensees and invitees, with differing duties of care.
2. If the distinction is eliminated, what duty applies to lawful entrants and whether summary judgment was proper under that standard.

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court abolished the common-law negligence distinction between licensees and invitees in premises-liability cases.
- The Court held that possessors of land owe a duty of reasonable care to all lawful entrants under the circumstances.
- The Court reversed summary judgment for BPE and remanded for further proceedings under the unified reasonable-care standard.

## Legal Principles

- Premises-liability claims by lawful entrants are governed by ordinary negligence principles, not rigid entrant-status categories.
- A land possessor’s duty to lawful entrants is reasonable care under all the circumstances, with foreseeability and reasonableness central to duty and breach.
- Questions such as inspection, maintenance, repair, and warnings are evaluated under the reasonable-care standard; lack of actual knowledge does not categorically bar liability if reasonable care could require discovery and correction of hazards.
- Summary judgment is improper when material factual disputes remain as to whether the land possessor acted reasonably in light of known conditions and foreseeable risks.

## Conclusion

The court replaced Vermont’s tiered premises-liability duties based on invitee or licensee status with a single duty of reasonable care owed to all lawful entrants, requiring the negligence claim to proceed under ordinary reasonableness and foreseeability analysis rather than categorical classifications.


Demag v. Better Power Equip., Inc., 2014 VT 78, 197 Vt. 176, 102 A.3d 1101 (Vt. 2014)