34. If the mother sues the hospital to recover damages for her injury, will she prevail?

A general duty of care is imposed on all human activity. When a person engages in an activity, he is under a legal duty to act as an ordinary, prudent, reasonable person. It is presumed that an ordinary, prudent, reasonable person will take precautions against creating unreasonable risks of injury to other people. However, the plaintiff must show that the defendant owed a legal duty to people in the same position as the plaintiff. If a defendant's conduct creates an unreasonable risk of injury to someone in the position of a plaintiff, the general duty of care extends from the defendant to the plaintiff. No duty is imposed on a person, however, to take precautions against events that cannot reasonably be foreseen.

An invitee is a person who enters the premises in response to an express or implied invitation of the landowner. There are two classes of invitees: (i) those who enter as members of the public for a purpose for which the land is held open to the public (e.g., museums, churches, airports); and (ii) those who enter for a purpose connected with the business or other interests of the landowner or occupier (e.g., store customers and persons accompanying them, employees, delivery persons).

The landowner owes an invitee a general duty to use reasonable and ordinary care in keeping the property reasonably safe for the invitee. This general duty includes the same duties owed to licensees, which includes a duty to: (i) warn of or make safe non-obvious, dangerous conditions known to the landowner and use ordinary care in active operations on the property; AND (ii) make reasonable inspections to discover dangerous conditions and, thereafter, make them safe.

C is correct. The mother's claim will not prevail because the hospital did not breach its duty of care. A person who has entered premises open to the public, such as a hospital, is owed a duty of care based on her status as an «invitee.» A hospital has a duty to use ordinary care to keep the premises reasonably safe in its operations, including warning of any known dangerous conditions and inspect for unknown dangerous conditions and make them safe.

Here, the mother was an invitee of the hospital because of an implied invitation to receive medical care. The hospital thus had a duty to keep the premises safe during operations, which would have included warning her of any known dangers making safe any dangers discovered. There is no evidence that the hospital failed to carry out this duty. Hospitals contain a lot of equipment used for medical treatment, and the metal fixture protruding from the emergency room wall would have been obvious to the reasonable person in the room. It was not a hidden danger that could have been made safer. Absent any evidence that the hospital should have taken steps to warn or somehow make safe the conditions that caused the mother's injury, it will not be held liable.

A is incorrect. Although it is correct that the mother held the status of an invitee, this does not render the hospital automatically liable for any injuries she sustains. As explained above, the hospital may successfully carry out its duty of care if it keeps the premises reasonably safe, warns of known dangers, and takes steps to discover and make safe other dangers. The hospital did not breach its duty here, which is why the mother will not prevail.

B is incorrect. There is no evidence that the fixture was hidden or that it posed any sort of unreasonable danger to individuals near it. The hospital would have only had a duty to take further action if the fixture posed some sort of known risk that it could have warned against or made safer. The fact that the fixture was or was not an essential piece of equipment is irrelevant here.

D is incorrect. This answer reaches the correct answer with the wrong reasoning. The mother will not prevail, but not because hospital personnel owed NO affirmative duty of care. Rather, she will lose because it carried out its affirmative duty of care, for the reasons explained above.