58 A.2d 150 | Pa. | 1948
Lead Opinion
This is plaintiffs' appeal from a refusal to take off a compulsory nonsuit. While a patron in the Blue Jay Restaurant, owned and operated by defendants, located at 22-24 West Main St., Norristown, Pa., Nancy Mogren, plaintiff, at or about 2 A. M. December 30, 1945, entered a darkened room which she believed to be the "ladies room". She fell through an unguarded hole in the floor and sustained severe injuries.
In their statement of claim, plaintiffs allege negligence on the part of defendants for failing to give proper and sufficient warning of the dangerous condition of the *509 floor in the "ladies room"; in failing to have the hole in the room properly and sufficiently guarded, and in failing to provide proper and sufficient light in the ladies room and the hallway leading thereto to enable the plaintiff to detect and guard against the presence of the hole in the floor.
The wife plaintiff was in defendants' restaurant where tables and booths were. Over a door, which was closed, was hung a black and white painted sign marked "Ladies". Plaintiff went through the doorway, closed the door and proceeded along a partially illuminated corridor, at the end of which were piled nearly to the ceiling boxes and barrels. She testified: "I heard dishes rattling, and I just thought that [the end of the hall] was the kitchen, and I didn't go back that far, and the only other doorway in the hallway was the one I went into on the left, about, oh, I guess, about three yards down the hallway on the left. So I thought it was there; so I went in there, I opened the door, looked in and saw it was dark, and I stepped in to reach for the light, and I went down a hole." Plaintiff stated she advanced about a foot into the room when she was precipitated into the cavity in the floor and fell "at least four feet". The room was completely empty. After plaintiff extricated herself from the hole, she went to the counter where her husband was sitting, informed him of the accident, and requested that she be taken to the hospital. She was in the hospital 25 days. Upon her return home she was bedridden and required the attendance of a nurse. She claims she still suffers great pain and is unable to attend to her household duties.
At the close of plaintiffs' testimony, defense counsel successfully moved for a compulsory nonsuit based on plaintiff's contributory negligence. The court said: ". . . the plaintiff has established that she was guilty of contributory negligence so clear and so plain that just minds couldn't differ on it, that she intentionally walked into a room that was in total darkness, took a *510 chance as to what she would meet in this room. So, since she didn't use a reasonable degree of care, she stepped into a room, in total darkness, and was injured, that would be contributory negligence as a matter of law, and she would be barred from recovery, no matter whether we went on with the trial of the case or you, the jury, would even give a verdict in her favor. . . ."
For a court to be justified in declaring a person contributorily negligent as a matter of law, evidence of such negligence must be so clear and unmistakable that no reasonable basis remains for an inference to the contrary. Murphy v.Bernheim Sons, Inc.,
It is incumbent upon restaurant owners to whose establishments persons come by invitation, express or implied, to maintain such premises in a reasonably safe condition for the contemplated uses thereof. "If, therefore, for example, a party invites others on his premises, he will be held to contemplate their presence there, and to know that dangerous conditions or appliances will likely produce injuries. A duty arises, accordingly, that the premises shall be reasonably safe for the purposes intended": Am. Eng. Encyclopaedia of Law, 2d Ed., Vol. 21, p. 471. *511
Plaintiff by entering a door marked "Ladies" and proceeding down a lighted corridor until she reached a door which she presumed led to the lavatory followed a course of conduct which an ordinarily prudent person would follow under like circumstances. Because of the piled boxes at the end of the passageway and the fact that the sound of rattling dishes emanated from that direction, plaintiff was justified in concluding that the "door to the left" led to the "ladies room" which the word "Ladies" over the door leading out of the restaurant undoubtedly invited lady patrons to enter. Plaintiff testified that the hole in the room was "about a foot inside of the door". Ordinarily, a person who follows an unfamiliar course in the dark and sustains personal injuries is guilty of contributory negligence. As a rule, darkness is in itself a warning to proceed either with extreme caution or not at all.
The law governing cases of this character was recently set forth in Bartek v. Grossman et al.,
In Modony v. Megdal,
In Dively v. Penn-Pittsburgh Corp. et al.,
In passing on questions of negligence, courts and juries must consider the realities of the situation. The standard of carefulness is the conduct under like circumstances of an average reasonable person possessed of ordinary prudence. To us it is clear that any prudent woman would have acted as Mrs. Mogren acted if confronted *513 with the same necessity and in the same situation.
In passing judgment on another's alleged want of care under certain circumstances, justice does not require a holding that the actor's foresight should have dictated that unusual degree of prudent conduct whose erstwhile necessity in order to avoid the mishap is now so clear to the judge's hindsight.
The judgment is reversed with a procedendo.
Mr. Justice PATTERSON dissents.
Dissenting Opinion
The majority opinion holds that "Those entering a dark toilet room to which they are invited cannot be adjudged negligent as a matter of law". This decision is without precedent in this Commonwealth, and will add another exception to the salutary rule that one who proceeds when he cannot see, cannot recover for injuries received as a result thereof because he himself is negligent as a matter of law. No decided case has permitted a jury to determine the question of contributory negligence where the plaintiff has admitted that he entered a totally dark room and that he could not see where he was going. The issue is not whether appellant was invited into the corridor or whether she reasonably believed the sounds of rattling dishes emanated from a kitchen at the end of a corridor. It is whether appellant exercised due care for her own safety under the circumstances — whether being unfamiliar with the premises she exercised that care when she opened a door not in any way identified as an entrance to a lavatory and being unable to see beyond the door, she nevertheless stepped forward into the room and stepped into an opening in the floor.
This Court said, in Dively v. Penn-Pittsburgh Corporation,
Appellant testified that she opened the door and the room was totally dark; that she could not see anything in the room;1 that she "opened the door and stepped into total darkness"; and that she "walked right straight forward and stepped into this hole walking forwards. . . ."2 Notwithstanding these circumstances, *515 the majority opinion holds that the question of her negligence must be determined by a jury. There can be no clearer case which would require a judicial pronouncement of contributory negligence as a matter of law.
This is not a case where a plaintiff moves about in semi-darkness or uses her senses and is injured as a result of misjudgment or having been deceived by her sense of sight. InDively v. Penn-Pittsburgh Corporation, supra, relied upon by the majority, plaintiff was not walking in a room completely devoid of light. There was a subdued light reflected from the auditorium, thereby enabling plaintiff to see where she was going. This Court said, page 70: "True, had she ventured to walk in the darkness behind the screen, such conduct might have been negligent, but her fall resulted from the first step she made as she rounded it and not from any attempt to venture across an unlit, unfamiliar area: see Clopp v. Mear, supra; James v. Smith,
Notwithstanding that the evidence is considered most favorably to appellant and she is given the benefit of all inferences and deductions reasonably to be deduced therefrom, her own contributory negligence clearly appears in (1) stepping forward into an unfamiliar and totally dark room, and (2) failing in any way to use her senses and to proceed cautiously. This is true irrespective of an assumption of physical necessity, for necessity is not a legal justification for actions which are rash and completely without regard to one's personal safety and welfare.
The judgment of the court below should be affirmed.
Mr. Justice LINN and Mr. Justice Horace STERN join in this dissent.