165 Mass. 254 | Mass. | 1896
This is an action against the owner of a building, for personal injuries caused by the giving way of a platform upon which the plaintiff was standing. Some days before the accident the defendant had made a written agreement that he had “ leased the Woburn Rink' and seats now therein for four nights, August 2d, 3d, 4th, & 5th, 1893, building to be lighted,” to one Gleason, all money in the box office to be under the defendant’s control until twenty dollars was paid each night. Gleason’s understood purpose was to give exhibitions of horse training. On the evening of August 9, Gleason was holding over on the foregoing terms by an oral understanding. An entertainment was to take place, the plaintiff with others had ascended a flight of stairs to the above mentioned platform, and was waiting upon it, in front of the entrance, for the doors to open, when it fell.
There was evidence that the support of the platform was manifestly defective, and, beside what the jury may have found from the description, there was express testimony that it was not properly constructed. See Lincoln v. Commonwealth, 164 Mass. 368, 379. Such a case could not be taken from the jury.
Exceptions overruled.