45 A.2d 710 | Conn. | 1946
Lead Opinion
The plaintiff brought this action to recover damages resulting from a fall on the defendants' premises claimed to be due to the slippery condition of *491 an entranceway. The trial court directed a verdict for the defendants and denied a motion to set it aside, and the plaintiff appealed.
In testing the correctness of a directed verdict for the defendant, the evidence must be considered in that aspect most favorable to the plaintiff. Lesser v. Bridgeport-City Trust Co.,
It is a familiar rule that the landlord is under a duty to use reasonable care to keep those parts of his building which are under his control in a reasonably safe condition and that if he fails in that duty and has actual or constructive notice of the defect in time to remedy it an injured plaintiff who is himself in the exercise of due care can recover. Smeriglio v. Connecticut Savings Bank,
The sole issue is whether the jury could have properly found that the defendants had notice of the defect in time to remedy it. The plaintiff claims that the defendants had actual notice because an employee had "a few minutes previously" passed over the very spot and could reasonably be expected to have seen the debris in time to brush it aside. The evidence is that at the very moment the employee came out the plaintiff started into the store. There is no testimony that the employee saw anything on the floor, and no reasonable inference could be drawn that he should have seen the defect in time to remedy it. A further' claim is that as the stand contained strawberries and lettuce and the plaintiff's fall occurred in proximity to it the jury could reasonably infer that the foreign substance came from the stand and was dropped on the floor by an employee, in which event the defendants would have notice through the employee. This would be pure speculation, for it may have been brushed off by a customer or dropped by him after he had made a purchase inside the store or at this outside stand.
The controlling question is that of constructive *493
notice: whether the condition had existed for such a length of time that the defendants' employees should, in the exercise of due care, have discovered it in time to have remedied it. O'Brien v. H. L. Green Co.,
In Hudson v. F. W. Woolworth Co.,
The facts of the present case are not essentially different from those found in the cases cited above, and include further circumstances which point to the conclusion that it was a proper case for submission to the jury. What constitutes a reasonable length of time is largely a question of fact to be determined in the light of the particular circumstances of a case. The nature of the business and the location of the foreign substance would be factors in this determination, and in the present case the jury reasonably could find that there was required a higher degree of vigilance in keeping the premises closely adjacent to the outside vegetable stand free from slippery rubbish than would be imposed upon one engaged in a business from the nature of which such perils are not reasonably expected to result. French v. Gardeners Farmers Market Co.,
Cases involving the condition of floors in retail markets are collected in 33 A.L.R. 181, 43 A.L.R. 866, 46 A.L.R. 1111, 58 A.L.R. 136, and 100 A.L.R. 710. They show substantial agreement as to the rules of law but are not in harmony as to the application of the law to the facts of a case. To a considerable degree each case must be decided on its own circumstances. Evidence which goes no farther than to show the presence of a slippery foreign substance does not warrant an inference of constructive notice to the defendant. There is the additional evidence in the present case which we have stated. It is weak, but we cannot say that the jury could not find it sufficient. Directed verdicts are not favored. If the evidence reasonably supports the allegations of negligence, the plaintiff is entitled to have his case go to the jury. Heringer v. *495
Underwood Typewriter Co.,
The defendants rely on three cases in which we held that the facts in evidence did not warrant an inference by the jury that the foreign substance had been on the floor long enough to constitute constructive notice. In Edwards v. Woolworth Co.,
There is error, the judgment is set aside and a new trial is ordered.
In this opinion MALTBIE, C.J., BROWN and JENNINGS, Js., concurred.
Dissenting Opinion
It is a primary duty of the court in a jury case to see that the jury are not allowed to guess at facts. Welshausen v. Parker Co.,