Slaughter, J.
This case is nominally about lawyer malpractice but really about premises liability. Plaintiff was 85 years old when she fell and severely fractured her leg while visiting her husband in the hospital. Plaintiff retained Defendants—a lawyer and his law firm—to represent her against the hospital. Defendants missed the filing deadline by failing to sue the hospital within the applicable statute of limitations. Under the “trial-within-a-trial” doctrine, a client alleging legal malpractice must prove not only that the lawyer’s conduct fell below the governing duty of care but also that the client would have prevailed had the lawyer not been negligent. Neither side disputes that missing a filing deadline breaches the duty of care lawyers owe to clients. So this case is about the second prong: Would Plaintiff have won her claim against the hospital had the lawyer timely sued?
The law firm invokes a defense the hospital would have asserted—that the hospital did not breach its duty under premises-liability law because Plaintiff’s fall was caused by a known or obvious condition: the wires and cords lying on the floor on which she allegedly tripped. We granted transfer to consider whether, as the Court of Appeals held, the landowner bears the burden on summary judgment to disprove that the invitee was distracted from or forgot about a known danger on the premises when the invitee made no such claim and designated no such evidence herself. But after oral argument, it is clear this issue is not squarely before us. Both parties now concede the invitee did not know of the tripping risk that she claims caused her fall. Although we have previously vacated grants of transfer when the factual premise for our grant proves false, we elect to decide this case on its merits.
We hold that Defendants, as movants on summary judgment, failed to negate the causation element of Plaintiff’s malpractice claim. Specifically, Defendants failed to establish, as a matter of law, that Plaintiff would not have succeeded in her premises-liability claim against the hospital. We reverse the trial court’s order granting summary judgment for Defendants and remand.
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We hold the trial court erred in granting summary judgment for the law firm. The designated evidence establishes a genuine issue of material fact—whether the phone cord and other wires posed an obvious danger. Although we can imagine scenarios when the dangerous condition is so clearly obvious that no reasonable factfinder could conclude otherwise, this is not such a case. We assess obviousness from a reasonable person’s perspective and hold on this record that obviousness is a question for the finder of fact. Thus, because the firm failed to prove that Roumbos could not prevail against the hospital, the firm did not negate the causation element of her malpractice claim. We reverse and remand.
he law firm also argued that Roumbos equivocated about the condition of the premises that she contends was dangerous and caused her fall. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument in its initial opinion, see Roumbos v. Vazanellis, 71 N.E.3d 64, 66 n.1 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017), and again on rehearing, 78 N.E.3d 1114, 1115 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017), trans. granted. We find that Roumbos has consistently identified wires on the floor generally or the telephone cord specifically as the cause of her fall and summarily affirm the Court of Appeals on this issue.
I. The viability of Roumbos’s malpractice claim against the law firm turns on the merits of her underlying premises-liability claim against the hospital.
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II. Summary judgment for the law firm was improper because genuine issues of material fact remain on the causation element of Roumbos’s premises-liability claim.
After construing the facts and reasonable inferences in favor of Roumbos, as required by our summary-judgment standard, we conclude the firm did not satisfy its burden of negating the proximate-causation element of her legal-malpractice claim because it did not negate an essential element of her premises-liability claim against the hospital. Whether the wires generally, or the phone cord specifically, posed a danger that was known to Roumbos, or should have been obvious to her, are factual questions for the finder of fact and not legal questions for the court.
A. Not “known”
A condition to land or premises is “known” under Section 343A if the plaintiff is both aware of the condition and appreciates its danger. Restatement § 343A, cmt. b. In its initial opinion, the Court of Appeals accepted the law firm’s argument that Roumbos knew about the wires. Roumbos, 71 N.E.3d at 69. Despite this finding, the law firm acknowledged during oral argument in our Court that Roumbos did not know about the wires after all. We agree with the firm. Roumbos testified unequivocally that she did not see the wires until after she had fallen and was lying on the floor.. We construe all inferences in Roumbos’s favor on the firm’s summary judgment motion. Thus, we assume the wires were unknown to her.
B. Not “obvious”
Though conceding Roumbos did not know of the wires’ presence, the firm still claims the hospital did not breach any duty since the wires should have been “obvious” to her. A condition is “obvious” under Section 343A if both the condition and the risk are apparent to, and would be recognized by, a reasonable person in the position of the visitor exercising ordinary perception, intelligence, and judgment. Restatement § 343A, cmt. b.
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Unlike the obvious risks in those cases, however, we conclude that a material factual dispute remains here: Does the firm’s designated evidence establish that the various wires on the hospital-room floor and the risks they pose would be apparent to a reasonable person? Construing the designated facts most favorably to Roumbos and drawing all reasonable inferences in her favor, we hold that a jury could reasonably find the wires were not obvious to the ordinary reasonable person in Roumbos’s position.
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Conclusion
For these reasons, we reverse the trial court’s order granting summary judgment for the law firm and remand to the trial court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Chief Justice Rush and Justices David, Massa, and Goff concur.