Premises liability law revolves around the truism that property owners have a responsibility to make sure that people who come onto their land or into their building have a right to expect that they will be safe from foreseeable injury.

A hospital in Ohio is now battling claims that it did not provide a safe environment for patients because at least four of them contracted Legionnaire's Disease while they were there. This story is beneficial to Bronx readers because it is a good example of how two sides can see the same facts in a premises liability incident, but can still interpret them differently.

The four people were sickened at Miami Valley Hospital in Ohio, one plaintiff claims, because the hospital installed a new water system but did not treat its water appropriately. That led to colonies of bacteria developing in the water and resulted in the patients getting Legionnaire's Disease, which is similar to pneumonia.

The one patient who has sued so far claims it is the hospital's fault, but the hospital has countered that Legionnaire's Disease was not a foreseeable injury (and, if that argument fails, it has blamed the contractors who set up the new water system).

The patient just filed his lawsuit, so attorneys for both sides have not yet had the chance to make their arguments, but it will be interesting to see how this turns out. On the one hand, we have an expectation that we won't get a water-borne illness when we're in the hospital. On the other, Legionnaire's Disease is not common, so the hospital could say these were extraordinary circumstances that it could not have protected against.

Source: Courthouse News Service, "Hospital Blamed for Legionnaire's Disease," Kevin Koeninger, Feb. 13, 2012