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NEW HAMPSHIRE LAW |
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FALL 2009
FALL 2009 NEW HAMPSHIRE SUPREME COURT: EMPLOYER DID NOT HAVE DUTY TO PREVENT OFF-DUTY MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENT The New Hampshire Supreme Court has held that, in the circumstances of this case, an employer did not have a duty to prevent an accident involving an off duty employee. Everitt v. General Elec. Co.,--- A.2d ----, 2009 WL 2412368 (N.H.,2009). On the day prior to accident, the employee, Jeremiah Citro, was sent home because he appeared confused and disoriented. Although he was instructed not to return to work until the following Monday, he came to work the next day. At first, Citro refused to leave so the employer. General Electric, called the police. Citro left before the police arrived, but he subsequently returned to the gates of the General Electric plant. The police were called again and they conducted several sobriety tests. They concluded that Citro was fit to drive but two hours later, he was involved in an accident with the plaintiff. The plaintiff filed suit against General Electric and one of its supervising employees, and the trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the plaintiff argued that the defendants owed a duty to prevent the accident, because General Electric had a policy against allowing impaired employees to drive. Rejecting this contention, the court concluded that “the mere existence of an internal policy setting forth procedures to deal with an impaired employee does not, standing alone, create a duty of care to the public at large.” The court reasoned that imposing liability would discourage employers from adopting such policies. Finally, the court concluded that, even assuming, without deciding, that the employer had some duty to control its employee’s conduct, General Electric fulfilled that duty in this case. The defendants contacted the police twice and the police concluded that Citro was fit to drive. The court concluded that the defendants were entitled to rely on the officers’ judgment. NEW HAMPSHIRE SUPREME COURT ADDRESSES PREMISES LIABILITY ISSUES IN SLIP AND FALL CASE IN Rallis v. Demoulas Super Markets, Inc, .--- A.2D ----, 2009 WL 1975908 (N.H.,), The New Hampshire Supreme Court refused to modify the law governing slip and fall cases . The plaintiff alleged that he slipped and fell in a supermarket because the floor was wet and had green beans on it. The court ordered a new trial because the instructions given to the jury were inadequate. The court explained that “a premises owner is subject to liability for harm caused to entrants on the premises if the harm results either from: (1) the owner's failure to carry out his activities with reasonable care; or (2) the owner's failure to remedy or give warning of a dangerous condition of which he knows or in the exercise of reasonable care should know.” To prevail on the first theory, “the plaintiff would have had to show that the defendant's conduct created a foreseeable risk of harm; in other words, it was reasonably foreseeable that an injury might occur because of the defendant's actions or inactions”. The second theory depends on whether the defendant knew or should have known about the dangerous condition. The plaintiff can satisfy his burden of proof on this issue by establishing how long the green beans were present The court explained that the plaintiff can also prove his case by showing that the defendant “knew that green beans regularly fell on the floor, creating a hazard to customers, but failed to take corrective action.” Since the trial judge’s instructions did not explain the law to the jury adequately, the court order a new trial. Finally, the court refused to adopt an approach followed in some jurisdictions which shifts the burden of proof to the defendant. “Under this approach, once the plaintiff proves that an injury occurred as a result of a premises hazard or a transitory foreign substance in a self-service store, the owner of the premises is presumed to have been negligent unless the owner shows by a preponderance of evidence that it exercised reasonable care in maintaining the premises under the circumstances.” The court refused to adopt this approach, preferring to maintain the rule that the plaintiff has the burden of proving his case. June 2008
June 2008 - MASSACHUSETTS LAW AGAINST SEXUAL HARASSMENT DOES NOT APPLY TO VOLUNTEERS Superior Court and the subsequent appeal. |
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