Premises liability; Duty owed to an invitee; Kandil-Elsayed v F & E Oil, Inc

Holding that defendant-EES Coke Battery owed plaintiff a common-law duty based on his status as an invitee on its land, the court reversed summary disposition for EES in this premises liability case, and remanded. EES contracted to have caustic soda delivered to its facility. Plaintiff delivered it. Believing there was a problem with his equipment, he unhooked the hose connecting his tanker to the storage facility. But the hose was still under pressure, and he was injured. On appeal, the court agreed with plaintiff that the trial court erred in concluding EES did not owe him a duty insofar as his claim sounded in premises liability. It held that EES owed him “the common-law duty to exercise reasonable care to protect plaintiff from an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerous condition on EES’s land. This duty arose by nature of the parties’ relationship, and it existed regardless of whether there was, in fact, a defective or dangerous condition on EES’s land.” None of EES’s arguments on appeal explained why it did not owe him “the common-law duty EES owed to all invitees on its land.” The fact that he “had control over the things he was doing on EES’s land did not deprive EES of control over its premises, which is what gave rise to the duty that” it owed him. As to its contention that it did not owe him “a duty because there was no dangerous condition on” its land, the court found that its “duty to plaintiff was not triggered by a condition on EES’s land, dangerous or not.” On the other hand, it rejected his assertion “that EES owed him a couple of other duties[.]” There was no freestanding duty on its part “to use reasonable care to ensure that plaintiff safely unloaded the caustic soda merely because EES contracted to have the caustic soda delivered to its storage tank. [His] actual employer was responsible for his safety and working conditions.” And its “standard operating procedures did not give rise to a duty” owed to plaintiff.