Stephens v. Stearns 106 Idaho 249; 678 P.2d 41 (Idaho Sup. Ct. 1984) Donaldson, Chief Justice Plaintiff-appellant Stephens filed this suit on October 2, 1978, for personal injuries she sustained on July 15, 1977. from a fall on an interior stairway of her apartment. Plaintiff's apartment, located in a Boise apartment complex, was a "townhouse" consisting of two separate floors connected by an internal stairway. The apartments were built by defendant Koch and sold to defendant Stearns soon after completion in 1973. Defendant Stearns was plaintiff's landlord from the time she moved into the apartment in 1973 through the time of plaintiff's fall on July 15, 1977. Defendant Albanese was the architect who designed and later inspected the apartment complex. When viewed in the light most favorable to appellant, the facts are as follows: On the evening of July 15, 1977, Mrs. Stephens went to visit friends. While there she had two drinks, She returned to her apartment a little past 10:00 p.m. Mrs. Stephens turned on the television in the living room and went upstairs to change clothes. After changing her clothes, she attempted to go downstairs to watch television. As Mrs. Stephens reached the top of the stairway, she either slipped or fell forward. She testified that she "grabbed" in order to catch herself. However. Mrs. Stephens was unable to catch herself and she fell to the bottom of the stairs. As a result of the fall, she suffered serious injury. The evidence further showed that the stairway was approximately thirty-six inches wide and did not have a handrail although required by a Boise ordinance. In granting defendant Stearns' motion for directed verdict, the trial judge concluded that there was "an absolute lack of evidence" and that "to find a proximate cause between the absence of the handrail and the fall sulfered by the plaintiff would be absolutely conjecture and speculation." (Although the trial judge's conclusion referred to "proximate cause," it is apparent that he was referring to factual or actual cause. See Munson v. State, Deportment of Highways, 96 Idaho 529,531 P.2d 1174 (1975).) We disagree with the conclusion of the trial judge: We have considered the facts set out above in conjunction with the testimony of Chester Shawver, a Boise architect called as an expert in the field of architecture, that the primary purpose of a handrail is for user safety. We are left with absence of a handrail was the actual cause of plaintiff's injuries; i.e., that plaintiff would not have fallen, or at least would have been able to catch herself, had there been a handrail available for her to grab. In addition, we do not believe that the jury would have had to rely on conjecture and speculation to find that the absence of the handrail was the actual cause. To the contrary, we believe that reasonable jurors could have drawn legitimate inferences from the evidence presented to determine the issue. This comports with the general rule that the factual issue of causation is for the jury to decide. McKinley v. Fanning, 100 Idaho 189, 595 P.2d 1084 (1979); Munson v. State, Department of Highways, supra. In addition, courts in several other jurisdictions, when faced with similar factual settings, have held that this issue is a question for the jury. Rather than attempt to squeeze the facts of this case into one of the common-law exceptions, plaintiff instead has brought to our attention the modern trend of the law in this area. Under the modern trend, landlords are simply under a duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. The Tennessee Supreme Court had the foresight to grasp this concept many years ago when it stated: "The ground of liability upon the part of a landlord when he demises dangerous property has nothing special to do with the relation of landlord and tenant. It is the ordinary case of liability for personal misfeasance, which runs through all the relations of individuals to each other." Wilcox v. Hines, 100 Tenn. 538,46 S.W. 297, 299 (1898). Seventy-five years later, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire followed the lead of Wilcox. Sargent v. Ross, 113 N.H. 388, 308 A.2d 528 (1973). The Sargent court abrogated the common-law rule and its exceptions, and adopted the reasonable care standard by stating: We thus bring up to date the other half of landlord-tenant law. Henceforth, landlords as other persons must exercise reasonable care not to subject others to an unreasonable risk of harm.... A landlord must act as a reasonable person under all of the circumstances including the likelihood of injury to others, the probable seriousness of such injuries. and the burden of reducing or avoiding the risk. 1d. at 534 [Citations] Tennessee and New Hampshire are not alone in adopting this rule. As of this date, several other states have also judicially adopted a reasonable care standard for landlords. In commenting on the common-law rule, A. James Casner, Reporter of Restatement (Second) of Property-Landlord and Tenant, has stated: "While continuing to pay lip service to the general rule, the courts have expended considerable energy and exercised great ingenuity in attempting to fit various factual settings into the recognized exceptions." In commenting on the common-law rule, A. James Casner, Reporter of Restatement (Second) of Property-Landlord and Tenant, has stated: "While continuing to pay lip service to the general rule, the courts have expended considerable energy and exercised great ingenuity in attempting to fit various factual settings into the recognized exceptions." Restatement (Second) of Property-Landlord and Tenant ch. 17 Reporter's Note to Introductory Note (1977). We believe that the energies of the courts of Idaho should be used in a more productive manner. Therefore, after examining both the common-law rule and the modern trend, we today decide to leave the common-law rule and its exceptions behind, and we adopt the rule that a landlord is under a duty to exercise reasonable care in light of all the circumstances. We stress that adoption of this rule is not tantamount to making the landlord an insurer for all injury occurring on the premises, but merely constitutes our removal of the landlord's common-law cloak of immunity. Those questions of hidden danger, public use, control, and duty to repair, which under the common-law were prerequisites to the consideration of the iandlord's negligence, will now be relevant only inasmuch as they pertain to the elements of negligence, such as foreseeability and unreasonableness of the risk. We hold that defendant Stearns did owe a duty to plaintilf Stephens to exercise reasonable care in light of all the circumstances, and that it is for a jury to decide whether that duty was breached. Therefore, we reverse the directed verdict in favor of defendant Stearns and remand for a new trial of plaintiff's negligence action against defendant Stearns. CASE QUESTIONS 1. Why should actual cause be a jury question rather than a question that the trial judge decides on her own? 2. Could this case have fit one of the standard exceptions to the common-law rule that injuries on the premises are the responsibility of the tenant? 3. Does it mean anything at all to say, as the court does, that persons (including landlords) must "exercise reasonable care not to subject others to an unreasonable risk of harm?" Is this a rule that gives very much direction to landlords who may wonder what the limit of their liabilities might be