The First Circuit has upheld a trial court’s dismissal on summary judgment of an outside worker’s suit against an auto dealership over a slip-fall injury he incurred on the floor in its garage and service area. The court noted that the reason for his presence at the dealership was that his company had been hired to clean it, and that he had said in his deposition that “typically there would be oil and grease everywhere” on that part of the floor after a day’s operations. Besides deeming the hazard to be open and obvious, the trial court had “noted Massachusetts precedent holding that a property owner does not owe a duty of care to a plaintiff where ‘the danger presented to the plaintiff was one that he had been hired to cure.'” [LaPointe v. Silko Motor Sales, First Circuit]
Posts Tagged ‘First Circuit’
No duty for gas station to paint pavement grooves
“Woman catches her shoe in groove in pavement at Tewksbury, Mass. gas station; she falls, is injured. Woman: The station had a duty to warn me of the danger, perhaps by painting the grooves (which are mandated by state law to contain spills) brightly. First Circuit: There is no such duty. But here’s a Judge Selya vocab quiz for your trouble: pellucid, behoof, animadversions, and rescript.” [John Kenneth Ross, Short Circuit on Potvin v. Speedway LLC]
September 13 roundup
- Scranton, Pa. federal judge “denies ‘exorbitant’ request for nearly $1M in attorney fees after $125K recovery” [ABA Journal; arose from bad faith insurance action on underlying uninsured motorist claim that settled for $25,000]
- As PETA settles monkey selfie case with hapless photographer, details confirm that “Naruto is really just a prop to be deployed in the case as PETA sees fit.” [Ted Folkman, Eriq Gardner, earlier] A sad catalogue of litigation abuse enabled by PETA’s donors [Frank Bednarz thread]
- Lively First Circuit opinion upholds extortion conviction of small town police chief [Bob Dunn, Berkshire Eagle, U.S. v. Buffis via IJ’s John Ross, “Short Circuit“; Lee, Mass.]
- She beat DOMA and the IRS too, and all in great style. My appreciation of Edith Windsor [Cato at Liberty]
- “North Carolina’s Fickle Finger of Redistricting” [also by me at Cato at Liberty]
- Me: “Posner was the judge lawyers really didn’t want to run into if they had bad class action settlements to defend” [Jonathan Bilyk, Cook County Record, earlier]
The Oxford comma case
Sorry to be a grump about the Oxford comma case (O’Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy, First Circuit), but the ambiguity was contrived and “resolve ambiguities in favor of liability” is not a good rule. [Casey Sullivan/FindLaw, Lowering the Bar]
Thwarted love and insurance coverage
From the First Circuit’s opinion introducing the case of Sanders v. Phoenix Insurance Company, arising out of somewhat lurid facts touching on both insurance coverage and professional responsibility:
SELYA, Circuit Judge. This case begins with a tragic tale of unrequited love and morphs into a series of imaginative questions regarding the coverage available under a standard form homeowner’s insurance policy. But when imagination runs headlong into settled legal precedent, imagination loses. Recognizing as much, the court below dismissed the complaint. After careful consideration, we affirm.