Section 13.87 Lighting

• Library: Tort Law 2016

J. (§13.87) Lighting

Failure to properly light an area or failure to maintain lighting in an area can be a breach of an occupier’s duty to persons coming on the occupier’s premises. But, as with all defects, the plaintiff has the burden to show that the absence of lighting created an unreasonable risk of harm and that the defendant either knew or should have known of the defect in time to have remedied it.

In Dean v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 300 S.W.2d 431 (Mo. 1957), the plaintiff tripped and fell over a wire hoop on the defendant’s parking lot. Although it was dark at the time of the accident, the defendant’s parking lot lights were not on. When the plaintiff reported the injury to the manager of the store the following day, the manager told the plaintiff that his employees had either neglected to turn the lights on or had not gotten around to it by the time the plaintiff fell.

The plaintiff’s theory of recovery in Dean was that the defendant’s failure to turn the lights on prevented the plaintiff from seeing the wire hoop, and this lack of light was the proximate cause of his fall. The defendant’s...