FRANKFORT, Ky. (Legal Newsline) – A Kentucky couple who hosted a pool party could still be liable for the drowning death of a seven-year-old boy.
The Kentucky Supreme Court held Arnold and Pam Ryan possibly owed a duty to Landon Bramlett, a member of a youth baseball team coached by Arnold Ryan who was invited over for a cookout and pool party.
No one noticed as Landon drowned. His step=grandfather had attended the party with him but was on a nearby patio at the time.
Reversing the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court found a property owner owes a reasonable duty of care to a guest whom the owner invites onto their property to participate in an activity.
The Pike County Circuit Court will now decide whether protecting Landon from drowning was such a reasonable duty. Questions still remain, like:
-Whether a 7-year-old can appreciate the danger of a swimming pool;
-Whether running and horseplay were taking place at the party;
-Whether Landon’s step-grandfather could see Landon from where he stood; and
-Whether Landon could swim, and if not, whether the Ryans were aware that he could not.
“Even if the court applied the lowest possible duty requirement to the Ryans, these disputed facts have the potential to be material to the jury’s determination of whether this duty was fulfilled,” Chief Justice John Minton wrote.
The court disagreed with a summary judgment ruling that found very few facts in dispute.
“The applicable standard is not that sufficient facts are alleged to draw an inference or conclusion in favor of the movant, but that no material facts are disputed such that there is only one legally sufficient conclusion to be drawn from the facts – that being the conclusion urged by the movant,” Minton wrote.
“In this case, those disputed facts that the trial court omits from its order could certainly be sufficient to convince a reasonable jury that the Ryans breached their duty, whatever it may be, to Landon Bramlett.”