Comments on my post “Before and after true topic sentences” have prompted me to clarify the post and make some changes.

One commenter pointed out that “if the proposition is basic and general, then there is no need to discuss the facts of cases so holding.”

Unless, of course, you are discussing the cases as a prelude to making specific comparisons of the facts of your own case to the facts of these precedents. I took these paragraphs out of the context of the real brief in which they originally appeared, and I thus left their purpose unclear. The next paragraphs in the original brief used factual analogies to make the point that the result in the case at hand should be the same as the result in the precedents.

I also took to heart the recommendations of another commenter to clarify the paragraphs by being explicit with case names. So I offer the following revision:

A property owner has no duty to protect an invitee against a danger the invitee knows about. Dover v. W.H. Braum, Inc., 111 P.3d 243, 246 (Okla. 2005). In Dover, the court affirmed summary judgment, holding that a store owner had no duty to warn a patron who slipped and fell on ice while leaving the store. Id. The patron had admitted seeing the ice when entering the store. Id.

But the danger need not be actually known; there is no duty to an invitee as long as the danger is “open and obvious.” Williams v. Tulsa Motels, 958 P.2d 1282, 1284 (Okla. 1998). In Williams, an invitee sued a motel for injuries sustained in a slip and fall. Id. at 1284. In affirming summary judgment, the court held that the danger of a wet floor was open and obvious and that the plaintiff should have known of the danger when he chose to walk on the wet floor. Id. at 1285.

Put another way, an open and obvious danger is one that is “plainly visible.” Safeway, Inc. v. Sanders, 372 P.2d 1021, 1023 (Okla. 1962). Thus, in Safeway, a store owner was not liable for injuries to customers who should have seen a plainly visible chair in the store aisle. Id. Summary judgment was affirmed. Id. at 1024.