Reinsurance Law Blog : Oklahoma Insurance Lawyer & Attorney : Stauffer & Nathan Law Firm

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There have been some recent unpublished cases of interest which discuss landowner liability, including landlord liability to third parties for conditions on the property.  Here is a summary of some of the main points of these unreported decisions.  

An absentee landlord in Oklahoma generally cannot be held liable as the keeper or harborer of its tenant’s pets. Hampton v. Hammons, 1987 OK 77, 743 P.2d 1053; Eastin v. Aggarwal, 2009 OK CIV APP 67, 218 P.3d 523; Bishop v. Carroll, 1994 OK CIV APP 37, 872 P.2d 407.

A property owner owes a licensee a duty to exercise reasonable care to disclose to him the existence of dangerous defects known to the owner, but unlikely to be discovered by the licensee. To an invitee, an owner owes the additional duty of exercising reasonable care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition for the reception of the visitor, but the owner need not remove known but obvious hazards. Pickens v. Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry, 1997 OK 152, 951 P.2d 1079, 1084. In other words, a landowner owes to an invitee, as well as to a licensee, a duty to protect him from conditions which are in the nature of hidden dangers, traps, snares and the like.” “A landowner has no duty to protect a business invitee from open and obvious dangers.” McKinney, 1993 OK 88 at 9, 855 P.2d 602 at 604.

A “hidden danger” within the terms of the rule governing the liability of an owner or occupant of the premises “need not be totally or partially obscured from vision or withdrawn from sight; the phrase is used to describe a condition presenting a deceptively innocent appearance of safety `which cloaks a reality of danger.’ Pickens, 1997 OK 152 at 10, 951 P.2d at 1084 (quoting Rogers v. Hennessee, 1979 OK 138, 3, 602 P.2d 1033, 1034). See also Jack Healey Linen Serv. Co. v. Travis, 1967 OK 213, 8, 434 P.2d 924, 927. In Julian v. Secured Investment Advisors, 2003 OK CIV APP 81, 23, 77 P.3d 604, 608, this Court noted:

The Oklahoma Supreme Court has stated that “the characteristic of an item as being observable . . . cannot, by itself, require that item to be declared as a matter of law an open and obvious danger.” Zagal v. Truckstops Corp. of America, 1997 OK 75, 9, 948 P.2d 273, 275. Instead, “[a]ll of the circumstances must be examined to determine whether a particular condition is open and obvious to the plaintiff or not.” Id. (citing Brown v. Nicholson, 1997 OK 32, 8, 935 P.2d 319, 322).

The general rule is that the right of possession and control over leased premises is a fundamental requirement for ascribing liability to a landlord for injury suffered on those leased premises, but the general rule does not apply where the leased premises are open to the public. See Schlender v. Andy Jansen Co., 1962 OK 156, 0, 380 P.2d 523 (Syllabus 3); Price v. MacThwaite Oil & Gas Co., 1936 OK 562, 0, 61 P.2d 177 (Syllabus 2).