32 A.2d 27 | Pa. | 1943
The proper determination of this controversy depends on the question whether the wife plaintiffs were "invitees" or merely "gratuitous licensees" upon defendants' premises at the time of the accident which befell them.
The Ward Hotel in Towanda, owned and operated by defendants, is a four-story building fronting on the west side of Main Street and extending westwardly along the north side of Poplar Street. An open balcony about 78 feet in length and 3 to 4 feet in width extended out from the wall on the Poplar Street side, overhanging the sidewalk at a height of about 14 feet at the Main Street corner and somewhat less than 4 feet at the westerly end, this difference being due to the fact that Poplar *249 Street runs sharply upgrade from Main Street. The balcony was reached at its westerly end by five steps up from the sidewalk; along its outer edge was an ironwork fence about three feet in height, and midway of its length there was a door leading into a second-floor hallway of the hotel. West of the hotel building and connected with it by a covered passageway was a smaller building known as the "Annex."
On the evening of November 1, 1939, Mrs. Parsons and Mrs. Louches, the wife plaintiffs, ascended the steps leading to the balcony, walked eastwardly along it past the door leading into the hotel, and continued on for a further distance of some 22 feet toward its dead end at Main Street. While they were standing there together with several other persons a portion of the balcony floor gave way and these ladies fell to the street and were injured. In the actions brought by them and their husbands to recover damages (the suits being consolidated for trial) the only factual dispute was in regard to their purpose in standing on the balcony. Defendants claimed it was solely to view the Hallowe'en parade which was then passing or about to pass along Main Street, but the wife plaintiffs insisted that they had come to visit one Mrs. Metschen who lived in the Annex, had found that she was out, and had then mounted the balcony in order to watch for her return and meanwhile to see the parade. If, at the time of the accident, the wife plaintiffs were invitees or "business visitors" of the hotel, the jury would have been justified in finding that defendants had failed to exercise reasonable care to maintain the balcony in a safe condition and had thereby violated the duty which they owed to plaintiffs: Restatement, Torts, § 343; Vetter v.Great Atlantic Pacific Tea Co.,
The learned trial judge told the jury that it was the duty of defendants to keep in reasonably safe condition the ways of ingress and egress over which visitors would naturally travel when paying social calls upon guests of the hotel. This instruction was correct, because such visitors are invitees and therefore entitled to protection to the extent indicated: Restatement, Torts, § 332, comment d; it is unimportant, however, in view of the fact that the accident to the wife plaintiffs did not occur while they were going to or from Mrs. Metschen's apartment.
The trial judge further instructed the jury that, if the wife plaintiffs were on the balcony for the purpose of viewing the parade and therefore for their own benefit and pleasure and not for any purpose connected with their visit to a guest of the hotel or in which defendants were in anywise interested, they could not recover. This, also, was a correct pronouncement of the law, for, in that event, the wife plaintiffs would have been merely gratuitous licensees. To be an invitee or business visitor one must enter or use the premises for the mutual benefit of himself and the owner or occupant; the purpose of his entry must be one in some way connected with business dealings between them: Restatement, Torts, § 332. If no such relationship, direct or indirect, exists, and the entrant is on the premises solely for his own benefit, even *251
though by permission or invitation* of the possessor, he cannot recover for any failure of the latter to have the premises in safe condition: Gillis v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co.,
It is true that if the wife plaintiffs stood on the balcony for the purpose of watching for the return of Mrs. Metschen, such purpose, even though coupled with another solely for their own benefit, would invest them with the status of business visitors, because waiting for a guest at a hotel is frequently incidental to the making of a social call. But in that connection another factor must be taken into consideration, namely, whether the balcony was apparently intended for such use in view of the fact that lobbies and parlors are ordinarily maintained by hotels for the accommodation of persons waiting to meet guests. Obviously the wife plaintiffs could not have chosen to take their stand upon any part of the premises they might arbitrarily select as most desirable for the purpose and by so doing impose responsibility upon defendants for their protection there as business visitors. One who enters premises as a business visitor may during his stay become a gratuitous licensee as to *252
certain portions of the building, or even, indeed, a trespasser as to others, with the rights and duties of the parties varying with each such change of status. A person who, even though for a business purpose, enters upon a portion of the premises where his presence for the transaction of such business is not reasonably to be foreseen, forfeits the position he might otherwise have enjoyed as a business visitor: Edmundson v.Monongahela Light Power Co.,
As a whole the charge of the court was painstaking, accurate and comprehensive, and the motion for a new trial was properly refused.
Judgments affirmed.