Facts
- Stephen L. Foster shopped at a Costco warehouse store in Henderson, Nevada.
- Costco used wooden pallets on the floor in the paper-goods aisle for display and stocking.
- Foster observed pallets near the aisle entrance, with boxes stacked on them; he testified a turned/overturned box obscured the edge or corner of one pallet.
- While walking down the aisle and looking at merchandise, Foster’s toe caught the pallet’s corner, causing him to trip, fall, and suffer injuries.
- The pallet had been placed in the aisle by a Costco employee.
- Foster sued Costco for negligence, alleging Costco created a dangerous condition by placing the pallet in the customer pathway and failed to warn of the hazard.
Issues
- Whether a landowner’s duty of reasonable care to entrants is eliminated when the alleged hazard is open and obvious.
- Whether Costco was entitled to summary judgment on the theory that an open-and-obvious condition negated breach as a matter of law.
Decision
- The Nevada Supreme Court reversed the summary judgment for Costco and remanded.
- The court adopted Restatement (Third) of Torts: Physical and Emotional Harm § 51, holding landowners owe entrants a general duty of reasonable care for risks on the property.
- The court held the open-and-obvious character of a condition does not automatically relieve a landowner of that duty; it is relevant to breach and comparative negligence.
- Summary judgment was improper because material fact disputes remained, including whether the pallet was actually open and obvious, whether Costco acted reasonably in placing/maintaining it without warning, and whether Foster failed to use reasonable self-protection.
Legal Principles
- Nevada premises liability applies a unitary duty: landowners owe entrants reasonable care for risks on the land.
- Open-and-obvious hazards do not negate duty; they are factors in evaluating whether the landowner exercised reasonable care (breach).
- The obviousness of a hazard may also bear on comparative negligence and apportionment of fault.
- Summary judgment is inappropriate where reasonableness and comparative-fault questions depend on disputed facts about visibility, placement, and foreseeability of customer distraction.
Conclusion
The court held that Costco’s reliance on the open-and-obvious doctrine did not eliminate its duty of reasonable care and that a jury must resolve disputed facts regarding the pallet’s visibility, Costco’s reasonableness, and Foster’s comparative negligence.