This is an action in tort for personal injuries sustained when the plaintiff fell down a flight of stairs at the defendant’s Revere Beach subway station. The case was tried in the Superior Court before *166 a jury. At the close of the evidence the defendant moved for a directed verdict. The motion was denied, the defendant excepted and the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The defendant is here on an outline bill of exceptions arguing that since the evidence was insufficient to warrant an inference of negligence, its motion for a directed verdict should have been granted. Hence, we summarize the evidence most favorable to the plaintiff.
At 8:45 A.M. on May 10, 1967, after paying her fare, the plaintiff started to descend a flight of stairs at the defendant’s Revere Beach subway station to get a train for Boston. The stairway was approximately twenty-five feet from where she paid her fare. She was holding onto the banister with her right .hand. The weather was damp and so was the stairway. She went down two steps, put her foot on something hard, fell, and tumbled to the bottom of the stairway. A companion of the plaintiff testified that she looked at the second step after the plaintiff fell, and saw something dirty, kind of muddy, two or three inches long, two inches wide, and one-half inch high. She tried to remove the substance with her foot by kicking it, but the substance did not move. An employee of the defendant, whose duties included cleaning, was on duty at the station until 6 A.M. that morning and all the other stairs were clean. Neither the substance nor its identity was introduced into evidence.
The evidence was sufficient to warrant a conclusion that the plaintiff fell because she stepped on the foreign substance. See
Gerstenzang
v.
Kennedy & Co. Inc.
1. The obligation of one who controls business prem
*167
ises is to use due care to keep the premises provided for the use of its patrons in a reasonably safe condition, or at least to warn them of any dangers that might arise from such use, which are not likely to be known to them, and of which the defendant knows or ought to know.
Rossley
v.
S. S. Kresge Co.
The length of time allowed to a defendant is governed by the circumstances of each case and to a large extent depends on “the opportunity for discovery open to the defendant’s employees by reason of their number, their physical proximity to the condition in question, and, in general, the likelihood that they would become aware of the condition in the normal performance of their duties.”
Deagle
v.
Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co.
*168 The time element may be proved by direct evidence but ordinarily the plaintiff has no recourse except to try to establish the proof by circumstantial evidence. This evidence usually consists in principal measure of a description of the foreign substance. So, in the case before us, the plaintiff contends that she has shown by circumstantial evidence that the defendant had a reasonable time to discover the foreign substance.
The evaluation of such circumstantial evidence is frequently, and unavoidably, a difficult and hairsplitting task. Thus, where the plaintiff slipped and fell on a banana peel, it was held that an inference of negligence was not warranted, since the peel might have been dropped only a moment before by another visitor.
Goddard
v.
Boston & Maine R.R.
In other cases where the foreign substance was animal or vegetable matter with commonly known decay characteristics, the rule of the
Anjou
case,
supra,
was held to permit recovery, e.g.,
Connair
v.
J. H. Beattie Co.
Where the nature of the substance is not known and there is no way to know if it turns black with time, or where the effect of time is not obvious or remains unproved, no inference is warranted that the substance has been on the ground or floor long enough to have been seen and removed, despite the fact that it is described as dirty or black.
Beach
v.
S. S. Kresge,
On the other hand, we held that an inference of negli
*170
gence was warranted in several cases wherein the opinions are brief and do not clearly establish any reasoning sufficient to distinguish them from the great majority of similar cases wherein' an inference of negligence was held to be impermissible.
Bavosi
v.
Interstate Theatres Corp.
In summary, recovery has been denied to the plaintiff in the great majority of cases where he has attempted to establish the time element by circumstantial evidence consisting for the most part of a description of the foreign substance. The cases where the plaintiff has succeeded fall, with a few exceptions, into three categories: (1) cases where the peculiar nature of the foreign substance as described supported an inference that the defendant’s employees either created or had actual knowledge of the condition (e.g.,
Young
v.
Food Fair, Inc.
In these cases where the plaintiff has succeeded, the circumstantial evidence, and the description of the foreign substance, were such that the application by the fact finder of principles within common knowledge was sufficient to establish the time element. 1
2. There was evidence in the instant case that the defendant’s employee, whose duties included cleaning the
*171
station, was on duty until 6 A.M. and the accident happened at 8:45 A.M. There was evidence that the substance could not be moved despite some kicking. There was also evidence that all the other steps on the stairway were clean. There is nothing to distinguish this case from the great majority of cases in which we have held that directed verdicts were required. The mere stickiness or adherence of the substance to the step is not such a quality as, in common knowledge, established the time element. See
Mandigo
v.
Hamid Amusement Co. Inc.
Exceptions sustained.
Judgment for the defendant.
Notes
We are not discussing here the occasional case where the plaintiff offers the assistance of expert testimony.
Compare the cases involving business visitors who slipped on ice, and the evidence warranted a conclusion that the ice had existed for a sufficient time to support a conclusion that the defendant in control of the premises was negligent.
Delano
v.
Garrettson-Ellis Lumber Co.,