## Facts

- Judith and Roger Warren, as social guests, went to neighbor Joe Medley’s home where Medley and his wife were hosting Mr. and Mrs. John Reynolds III during a poker game.
- After discussion about dancers seen earlier at a nightclub, Reynolds suddenly grabbed Judith Warren and placed her on the poker table.
- The table had a glass top resting within a wrought-iron frame without center support; Medley knew it would not support an adult’s weight.
- Within seconds, before any dancing began and while Judith pleaded to be helped down, the glass top broke and she fell through, cutting her leg on broken glass.
- The Warrens sued Medley (homeowner/host) and Reynolds; they later settled with Reynolds.
- The trial court granted Medley’s motion for summary judgment and rendered a take-nothing judgment; the Warrens appealed only as to Medley.

## Issues

1. What duty did a homeowner/host owe to social guests (licensees) under Texas premises-liability law at the time of the incident?
2. Whether the summary-judgment record raised a fact issue that Medley’s conduct amounted to willful, wanton, or gross negligence.
3. Whether Medley’s conduct was a proximate cause of Judith Warren’s injuries where a third party abruptly placed her on the table.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the take-nothing summary judgment for Medley.
- The Warrens were treated as social guests/licensees, limiting Medley’s duty to refraining from willful, wanton, or grossly negligent conduct.
- The record (including deposition testimony) showed Medley did not suggest, direct, or participate in placing Judith on the table and was surprised by Reynolds’s act.
- Reynolds’s sudden, independent act was the immediate cause of the dangerous situation, and the record did not show Medley had a realistic opportunity to prevent it.
- Medley negated the plaintiffs’ right to recover by showing no evidence of willful, wanton, or gross negligence and no showing of proximate cause attributable to him.

## Legal Principles

- A homeowner’s duty to a social guest treated as a licensee is limited to avoiding willful, wanton, or gross negligence (not ordinary negligence).
- Knowledge of a dangerous condition, without evidence the host created, encouraged, or consciously disregarded a known extreme risk to the guest, does not establish willful, wanton, or gross negligence.
- Summary judgment is proper when the defendant conclusively negates an essential element of the plaintiff’s claim or shows the record raises no genuine issue of material fact.
- A third party’s abrupt, independent act may defeat liability where the premises owner neither participated in creating the peril nor could reasonably intervene, and causation cannot be tied to the owner’s conduct under the applicable duty.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed summary judgment for the homeowner because the injured plaintiff was a social guest/licensee and the evidence did not raise a fact issue that the host engaged in willful, wanton, or grossly negligent conduct or that his conduct legally caused the injury resulting from another guest’s sudden act.


Warren v. Medley, 521 S.W.2d 137 (Tex. Civ. App.—Beaumont 1975)