# Houston v. Safeway Stores, Inc.

> Court of Appeals of Maryland · July 30, 1997 · 346 Md. 503

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9758935

## Case

- **Full name:** Carrie HOUSTON, v. SAFEWAY STORES, INC.
- **Court:** Court of Appeals of Maryland
- **Decided:** July 30, 1997
- **Citations:** 346 Md. 503; 697 A.2d 851; 1997 Md. LEXIS 116
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Raker
- **Judges:** Chasanow, Raker
- **Cited by:** 28 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9758935

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a customer who enters an area generally not open to the public, “without permission,” “acquire[s] the status of a ‘mere licensee [ ] to whom the storekeeper owes no duty’”
- observing that, for appellate review, “this Court must resolve all conflicts in the evidence in favor of the [prevailing party] and must assume the truth of all evidence and inferences as may naturally and legitimately be deduced therefrom” (quoting Smith v. Bernfeld, 226 Md. …
- holding that “[t]he duty of care owed to invitees extends only to the parts of the store reserved for customers . . . not to places where customers are not invited.”
- observing that the standard for appellate review is whether there is “any legally relevant and competent evidence, however slight, from which a rational mind could infer a fact in issue, ...”

## Opinion text

RAKER, Judge,
dissenting.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals affirming the trial court’s grant of Safeway’s Motion for Judgment N.O.V. The trial court correctly ruled that, as a matter of law, this restroom in question, located at least ninety feet inside the stock area, behind doors marked “No Admittance,” was not a public facility.
*525 The facts that the majority finds to be in dispute, in my view, are not material facts. These facts largely have no bearing on whether a restroom ought to be considered a public or nonpublic facility. The majority contends that whether persons who know where the restroom is located must nevertheless ask permission to use the restroom is a disputed fact bearing on the status of the restroom. A business’s decision to require customers to ask permission to use the facilities does not change the fundamental characteristics of the restroom as public or nonpublic. Furthermore, the location or existence of a key to unlock the restroom door is not material to the determination of whether the facility is public or private. Many restrooms that are clearly public, such as those at many gas stations, nevertheless require a key. Finally, the number of people which Safeway directs to the restroom in a given time period is not material to the restroom’s status. Heavy use of a nonpublic restroom does not convert that restroom into a public facility just as infrequent use of a public facility cannot make it nonpublic. Were it otherwise, businesses would have an incentive to limit sharply the use of its restroom to avoid converting it from nonpublic to public and losing the immunity conferred by the statute.
For the above stated reasons, I dissent.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9758935. Public record. Not legal advice.