Ballou v. Collamore
| Decision Date | 29 November 1893 |
| Parties | BALLOU v. COLLAMORE. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
George
E. Smith, for plaintiff.
Samuel J. Elder, Robert F. Herrick, and Guy Cunningham, for defendant.
The plaintiff was familiar with the elevator and with the back stairs and back halls of the hotel. During the four or five months that he had been working for Mr. Hastings he had delivered goods to various tenants in the hotel from three to five times a day. On the day of the accident he went to the hotel with goods to be delivered to certain tenants. He got into the freight box of the elevator, as usual, and told the elevator boy that he wanted to stop at suites 9, 15 and 17, and the boy replied, "All right." Suite 9 was on the fourth floor, and the other suites were above that. On the first floor a passenger got into the passenger part of the elevator. When suite 9 was reached, the elevator boy stopped the elevator, and told him that was the floor which he wanted. There was no door to the freight box, but there was a sliding door to the elevator well, which opened on the inside. The plaintiff opened this door, stepped into the back hall, and thence to the kitchen door of suite 9 which was about five feet from the door of the elevator well and delivered his goods, leaving the goods for suites 15 and 17 in the freight box, and leaving the door into the elevator well open. The elevator boy, having a passenger, went up with the elevator. The hall was dark, but, when the kitchen door was open, it was light in the hall, and the plaintiff could see. Assuming that the elevator was still there, the plaintiff went back, and, without looking to see if it was stepped through the open door, and fell to the bottom of the well. The plaintiff knew that the elevator boy could not shut the door without raising the elevator, and getting from the passenger part of it into the freight box, and then lowering it to the door. It was not possible to see from the passenger part of the elevator into the freight box, and there was no door in the passenger part of the elevator on the side which was above the door into the elevator well. The plaintiff contends that there is testimony tending to show that the elevator boy sometimes waited for him when there were passengers in the elevator, and that he did not usually shut the door into the elevator well unless told by the elevator...
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