## Facts

- Patricia and Ernest Mallet made an unannounced social visit to Selbert and Anita Pickens, longtime friends, at the Pickenses’ home.
- The home was under construction, and the only access to the front door was temporary wooden stairs without a railing or banister.
- A masonry block was left on the ground near the steps.
- As Patricia Mallet exited, the temporary stairs shifted; she fell and struck her head on the block.
- She suffered facial fractures requiring surgery.
- The Mallets sued the Pickenses for negligence; the circuit court granted summary judgment to the Pickenses under premises-liability rules treating social guests as licensees owed only a duty to avoid willful or wanton injury.

## Issues

1. Whether a social guest should be treated as an invitee rather than a licensee for premises-liability purposes.
2. Whether West Virginia should abolish the common-law invitee/licensee distinction and impose a single duty of reasonable care to all non-trespassing entrants.
3. Whether summary judgment was proper where the claim was evaluated under a limited duty tied to entrant status.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded.
- The court abolished the common-law distinction between licensees and invitees.
- Landowners and possessors now owe any non-trespassing entrant a duty of reasonable care under the circumstances.
- The court retained the traditional rule for trespassers: only a duty to refrain from willful or wanton injury.
- Applying the new standard, the court held the record could support a finding that injury was foreseeable and that reasonable precautions or warnings may have been required, making summary judgment inappropriate.

## Legal Principles

- Appellate review of a circuit court’s entry of summary judgment is de novo.
- Summary judgment is proper only when there is no genuine issue of material fact and further factual inquiry is unnecessary to apply the law.
- Courts may alter or amend common-law tort doctrines; constitutional and statutory recognition of the common law does not freeze it.
- For premises liability, invitee and licensee categories are abolished; reasonable care under the circumstances governs duties owed to all lawful (non-trespassing) entrants.
- The existence of a duty turns on foreseeability: whether a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would anticipate harm of the general type suffered.
- In assessing reasonable care toward a non-trespassing entrant, the factfinder considers: (1) foreseeability of injury, (2) severity of injury, (3) time, manner, and circumstances of entry, (4) normal or expected use of the premises, and (5) the burden of guarding against injury.

## Conclusion

West Virginia replaced status-based premises-liability duties for lawful entrants with a unified reasonable-care standard grounded in foreseeability, while preserving the limited duty owed to trespassers; because the evidence permitted a finding of foreseeable risk from the construction conditions, summary judgment for the homeowners was reversed.


Mallet v. Pickens, 522 S.E.2d 436 (W. Va. 1999)