Galaxy Cable, Inc. v. Davis ex rel. Davis

Summary

The Alabama Supreme Court reviewed a judgment awarding compensatory and punitive damages to a minor injured by a frayed guy wire near a basketball court. The court affirmed the negligence judgment, holding that Galaxy had not preserved or properly raised certain premises-liability arguments and that the evidence supported submission of negligence to the jury. It reversed the wantonness judgment and remanded for the punitive-damages award to be set aside because the evidence was insufficient to establish wantonness.

Holdings

1. Galaxy waived any challenge concerning Benjamin's status and any specialized premises-liability duty because it acquiesced to the trial court's failure to give such instructions and did not argue on appeal that the failure to instruct on the open-and-obvious defense was error.
2. A plaintiff need not present evidence of industry standards, electrical codes, ordinances, manuals, or other technical materials to establish that a defendant owed a duty of care; the duty is measured objectively by what an ordinary careful and prudent person would have done under the same or similar circumstances.
3. Alabama Power Co. v. Moore did not require reversal because the evidence did not establish the same unforeseeable intentional destruction of equipment involved in Moore; movement of the protective guard and subsequent exposure and fraying of the wire could be considered a foreseeable intervening event.
4. The evidence was insufficient to support a finding of wantonness by Galaxy, and the punitive-damages award therefore had to be set aside.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Galaxy could argue on appeal that it owed Benjamin no premises-liability duty because he was a social guest or because the guy wire was an open and obvious condition when Galaxy acquiesced to the trial court's failure to instruct the jury on entrant status and premises-liability duties.
2. Whether the absence of evidence concerning industry standards, electrical codes, ordinances, manuals, or other technical materials defeated Davis's negligence claim or established that Galaxy owed no duty of care.
3. Whether Alabama Power Co. v. Moore required reversal because an alleged intentional movement of the guy-wire guard was a superseding cause.
4. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support a wantonness finding and the resulting punitive-damages award.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded