15 N.W.2d 874 | Minn. | 1944
Plaintiff, a woman 69 years old, was injured while walking in a hall of an apartment building owned by the defendant by tripping or stumbling on a metal floor plug used for cleaning plumbing drainpipes which projected approximately a quarter or three-eighths of an inch above the floor level. Defendant was in possession and control of the hall as one reserved for the use of himself and the tenants of the building. Pursuant to defendant's invitation, plaintiff was in the building for the purpose of looking at some chairs in the storeroom. She went to the caretaker's apartment, and, not finding him there, she then went down the hall toward the store-room. She had been in the building a few times before and evidently was familiar with the halls, stairs, and storeroom. The hall was dimly lighted. Plaintiff did not see the floor plug because of the dim light. She fell forward and down a flight of three steps about 3 1/2 feet forward from the floor plug to the floor level where the storeroom was. *313
Plaintiff's claim was that defendant's maintenance of the projecting floor plug in the dimly lighted hall was negligence. Defendant claimed that his invitation to plaintiff to come upon his property was confined to the area leading to the caretaker's apartment and that when she proceeded beyond that point down the hall where she was injured she became at most a licensee, who took the premises as she found them. This contention is based on plaintiff's testimony that she "went to the caretaker's door and rang the bell" and that that was the place she was going to meet him. Defendant's testimony was to the effect that she had been in the building before to exchange furniture kept by him in the storeroom and that on the occasion in question the "janitor [caretaker] would let her into the storage room." Further, he claimed that he was not negligent and that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence not only in failing to discover the conditions of which she now complains, but also in venturing through the dimly lighted hall where her vision of conditions there existing was obscured.
1. The rule is as defendant claims. "When an invitee steps beyond the bounds of his invitation he becomes a mere licensee and must take as he finds it the part of the premises he then enters." Schmidt v. George H. Hurd Realty Co.
2. A possessor of premises, while not an insurer, is under a continuing duty to exercise reasonable care to construct and to maintain his premises in a reasonably safe condition for the use of invitees, express or implied. The rule is commonly applied in cases involving halls and stairways, as here, reserved for use of the possessor's and his tenant's invitees. Anderson v. Winkle,
3. The contention that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence rests upon the claim that she knew that the hall was dimly lighted and that by electing to proceed she negligently risked the dangers which she encountered. The evidence fails to show that plaintiff knew of the existence of the floor plug or any danger arising from that source. Whether she should have seen it and avoided *315
stumbling or tripping over it was a fact question. Soper v. Erickson,
Affirmed.