Hall v. Medical Bldg. of Houston

Decision Date01 October 1952
Docket NumberNo. A-3415,A-3415
Citation151 Tex. 425,251 S.W.2d 497
PartiesHALL v. MEDICAL BLDG. OF HOUSTON.
CourtTexas Supreme Court

Dyess & Dyess, Vinson, Elkins & Weems and Tarlton Morrow, Houston, for petitioner.

Fulbright, Crooker, Freeman & Bates, Houston, for respondent.

SMEDLEY, Justice.

Petitioner, Mrs. Eunice Hall, recovered judgment in the district court for $22,000 on account of injuries suffered by her when she was struck by a door opening into the lobby of the Medical Arts Building, an office building owned and operated by respondent, Medical Building of Houston. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed that judgment and rendered judgment that the petitioner take nothing by her suit, holding that there is no evidence in the record to support the jury's findings of negligence and proximate cause. 243 S.W.2d 409.

On respondent's appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals, the only points of error presented by it were that the trial court erred in overruling its motion for peremptory instruction and erred in overruling its motion for judgment non obstante veredicto. The application for writ of error was granted on petitioner's point which assigns error in the holding of the Court of Civil Appeals that respondent's motion for peremptory instruction was improperly overruled.

Stated generally, the position taken by petitioner is that there is evidence supporting the jury's findings of negligence and proximate cause so that the case presented in the trial court was one of fact for the jury's determination, while respondent contends that there is no evidence to support the jury's findings. The task therefore given to this Court, as in many other cases, is to examine and consider all of the evidence bearing on the controlling issues, and having done so to decide whether there is evidence of probative value to support the answers made by the jury to the issues.

Evidence in the record shows the following facts about the building, its occupancy and use, and particularly about the lobby and the door which petitioner testified struck her on July 13, 1948, and about petitioner's employment in the building and her knowledge of the building, the lobby and the door.

The building is a large office building of sixteen floors and basement. It has 250 rent-paying tenants, most of them being of the medical profession. There are about 800 people in the building, 300 men and approximately 500 nurses. Many sick and crippled persons enter and leave the building. There are four elevators that are entered from the north side of the lobby. They have a capacity of 17 passengers each. The manager of the building expressed the opinion that the lobby perhaps receives and dispatches more persons in a day than the lobby of any like size building in the city. He testified that quite often every elevator was busy and full and that sometimes there were many more standing in the lobby than were already in the elevators.

In the north wall of the lobby and just west of the elevators is a door described in the record as 'door A', opening into a corridor that leads to two doctors' offices fronting on the street north of the building, a barber shop, other shops and rest rooms. Much of the west part of the ground floor is occupied by a drugstore which has an entrance from the lobby. A stairway leading from th ground floor to the second floor of the building is enclosed by the west wall of the lobby, with access through a door in that wall. The door is described in the record as 'door B'. Before renovation of the building in 1948 there was no door and no wall separating the lobby from the stair hall. The wall was built and the door was hung 'mainly to control the air conditioning' at the time when the building was renovated. And according to the testimony of the building manager the door was hung in the latter part of April, or possibly in May, 1948. The door is a 'hollow metal door' weighing about 225 pounds. It opens into the lobby, swinging toward the north. It has a door check that was put on it when the door was hung and has since been there. The check is a compression check that can be adjusted to exert more or less pressure when the door is opened. Its adjustment is a simple process. The manager of the building testified that the door check was a good one and was in good working condition on July 13, 1948. The door was taken off and with the door check on it was set up in the court room for the trial. The building manager while testifying examined the door to ascertain what pressure was exerted by the door check on opening the door, and testified that it was working normally and at about the same normal pressure that it had on the day when petitioner was injured. Tow witnesses for petitioner testified that they went to the door immediately or a short time after petitioner was struck, examined it, and found that it opened freely, more freely than when they tested it as set up in the court room at the trial.

On the second floor of the building there were two laboratories, a surgical and dental supply company, an X-ray sales room and the building manager's office. The manager of the building testified that the stairway was used 'a great deal' by tenants on the lower floors and by some of the patients, that he knew there were numerous persons going up and down the stairs and opening the door in the lobby, that he himself used the stairs and the door about twenty times a day, that delivery boys came down the stairs from the laboratories and the supply company, and that sometimes the boys hurried down the stairs.

It is further shown by the testimony of the manager of the building that about a month before the time when petitioner was injured he, the manager, suddenly opened the door at the foot of the stairs and the knob of the door struck on the arm a maid employed by Dr. Prince, who was a tenant and petitioner's employer. At another time prior to petitioner's injury the building manager in opening the door almost struck Dr. Prince as he entered the lobby from the corridor, and Dr. Prince stopped and told the manager that the door nearly struck him. After these incidents nothing was done 'to correct the situation.' The building manager testified that it would have been practicable to place a warning sign on the inside of the door and to place a guard rail to keep persons in the lobby from being struck by the door. The hinges of this door described as 'door B', which when opened swings toward the north, are at a distance of about three feet from the door in the north wall of the lobby described as 'door A', so that persons entering the lobby through 'door A' and going straight toward the front of the building would step almost immediately into the path of 'door B' when opened.

Portions of ordinances of the City of Houston provide: that stairways in office buildings be enclosed; that the stairways be protected by hollow metal doors which swing in the direction of exit travel, except that sliding doors may be used if approved by the building inspector; and that the doors shall be self-closing and normally kept closed, and shall be so arranged as to be readily opened.

Petitioner Mrs. Hall was head nurse and office manager of Dr. Prince, having been employed by him from 1941 to the time of her injury on July 13, 1948. While she was thus employed she went many times from Dr. Prince's office through the corridor and into the lobby and to the drugstore or up the stairs to procure supplies. She used the corridor and the entrance through 'door A' many times after the partition was built and the door at the foot of the stairs hung in April or May, 1948, but she testified that she had not gone up the stairs after the door was hung, that she knew the door had been installed, but had never used it, had never seen it opening, had never seen others using it, and did not know whether it opened into the lobby or into the stairway.

On the day she was struck by the door petitioner was going from Dr. Prince's office through the corridor and into the lobby in order to procure from the drugstore medicine for a patient. She testified that when she stepped into the lobby she found that it was crowded with people waiting for the elevators, and she had to push her way through; that she was crowded toward the west wall and was struck by 'door B' when it was opened with force, and knocked through a line of people, and that the door struck her hip, shoulder and head. She testified to a vague recollection that the door was opened by a 'blond boy', who went on out of the building. A witness for respondent testified that the door was opened by one of the boys who worked for the supply company on the second floor.

In answer to special issues the jury found respondent negligent on three grounds proximately causing the injuries sustained by petitioner: (1) In failing to provide 'door B' with a door check mechanism set with greater pressure to resist opening; (2) in failing to provide a guard rail erected around the opening of 'door B' into the lobby; and (3) in placing a swinging door at the location of 'door B'.

There is no uncertainty as to the established principles applicable to a case of this kind. The difficulty is in their application to the peculiar facts of the case. In Renfro Drug Company v. Lewis, 149 Tex. 507, 516, 235 S.W.2d 609, it is said that the owner or occupant of the premises owes to an invitee or business visitor the duty to use reasonable care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition so that he will not be injured. See also Carlisle v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 137 Tex. 220, 152 S.W.2d 1073; Kallum v. Wheeler, 129 Tex. 74, 101 S.W.2d 225; Walgreen-Texas Company v. Shivers, 137 Tex. 493, 154 S.W.2d 625; Blanks v. Southland Hotel, Inc., 149 Tex. 139, 229 S.W.2d 357; Restatement of the Law of Torts, Vol. 2, Sec. 343, pp. 938-944; 38 Amer.Jur., pp. 754-757, Sec. 96; 65 C.J.S., Negligence, § 45, pages 521-532.

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