295 P. 822 | Cal. | 1931
Action for damages for personal injuries. At the conclusion of the evidence the court, on motion of defendant, granted a nonsuit and judgment followed from which plaintiff appeals upon a full record. The facts are not in dispute and those here material may be set forth within a narrow compass:
Defendant owns a large office building in the city and county of San Francisco known as The Merchants Exchange Building. Offices therein are rented to tenants for their own use and the use of all persons having business with them. Plaintiff, an insurance manager, on December 13, 1919, had business with the Pacific Adjustment Bureau, the offices of which were located on the tenth floor of defendant's said building. During the transaction of his business at this place, plaintiff stained his hands with ink. After concluding the business transaction, he passed down the corridor of the building seeking a washroom wherein to cleanse his hands. He was more or less familiar with the other floors of the building and knew the location thereon of the washrooms and urinals. Moving along the corridor to a point corresponding to the position of the washrooms and urinals on other floors of the building, he found a plain door, bearing no invitational sign, but, feeling that it must be the place he sought, he opened the door and found himself in a small dimly lighted antechamber with a swinging door between it and a larger room, which was lighted. The light from the larger room, shed over and under the swinging door, served to light dimly the antechamber. Plaintiff looked at the so-called usual place but saw no wash-basin there and he did not seek it in the lighted room, where two urinals were located. He thought the washroom must be at some other place and recalled that upon opening the door and entering the room wherein he stood, has hand had come in contact with the bolt of another door to his right. This door was ajar. The light shed into the little room was just *406 sufficient to make the darkness visible within the area to which this last-mentioned door led. Pursuing the thought that this door must lead to a washroom, he proceeded toward the aperture, moving in total darkness, and in attempting to set foot on a supposed floor and to find a supposed electric switch button, he plunged into an air-shaft some eighty feet in depth but fortunately, after a fall of some fifteen or twenty feet, caught himself upon a ledge of some kind and was rescued, although severely and permanently injured. He thereupon brought this suit alleging negligence on the part of defendant owner of the building growing out of the above facts.
[1] In granting the nonsuit the court based its ruling upon the ground that plaintiff in the portion of the building where injured was at most a licensee and not an invitee and upon the further ground that plaintiff himself was guilty of contributory negligence. We see no logical escape from a full approval on both grounds of the ruling of the court below. In so doing we grant to plaintiff the status of an invitee in the building and even in the anteroom or urinal but when he failed to enter the lighted room in search of the wash-basin and proceeded to set hand and foot in a place filled with impenetrable darkness, we cannot believe that the invitation was broad enough to cover this wandering search conducted by him nor believe that he exercised ordinary care for his own safety.
Both plaintiff and defendant have marshalled a long line of cases, each contending for their applicability to the case at hand. We find none of them exactly parallel to this case; hence an extended review thereof would not be profitable. We do find, however, a case which although different in fact seems to be the same in principle and clearly in point — Powers v. Raymond,
[2] It is well recognized that a person may be an invitee in a portion of a building and not enjoy that status as to other portions thereof. (Powers v. Raymond, supra; Kennedy v.Chase,
The judgment is affirmed.
Curtis, J., Shenk, J., Langdon, J., Seawell, J., Richards, J., and Waste, C.J., concurred. *408