Bavosi v. Interstate Theatres Corp.

• Decision Date: 30 October 1940
• Parties: CATHERINE BAVOSI v. INTERSTATE THEATRES CORPORATION.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

307 Mass. 124

29 N.E.2d 688

CATHERINE BAVOSI v. INTERSTATE THEATRES CORPORATION.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

October 30, 1940

September 23, 1940.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., LUMMUS, QUA COX, & RONAN, JJ.

Negligence Theatre, Sticky substance, Contributory.

Evidence of the appearance of a patch of sticky substance partly in the aisle of a theatre warranted a finding that it had been there so long that the proprietor was negligent toward a patron who was caused to fall when his shoe stuck in the substance.

A finding of contributory negligence of a patron of a theatre was not required by evidence that he was caused to fall when his shoe stuck in a sticky substance partly in an aisle as he was leaving before the lights were turned on at the conclusion of a performance.

TORT. Writ in the Superior Court dated November 16, 1936. The action was tried before T. J. Hammond, J., who ordered a verdict for the defendant.

N. Rosenfeld, for the plaintiff.

M. Rubin, (J.

C. McDonald with him,) for the defendant.

RONAN, J. The plaintiff testified that, accompanied by a young man who has since become her husband, she attended an evening performance at the defendant's moving picture theatre, occupying the third seat in the front row of the second balcony; that her escort sat in the fourth seat; that they waited a minute or two after the conclusion of the performance before leaving their seats; that the lights had not then been turned on in that portion of the theatre; and that, as she was going between the front railing of the balcony and the first seat in the row in which she had sat, she "was walking out this way, as I went to pick up my foot, it was stuck or it had a tendency to sort of slip, and, as I went to pick up my foot again I slipped this way, I fell, and I twisted and fell this way." There was evidence that a patch of some sticky substance eight inches long and six inches wide was upon the floor under the front seat and projecting three inches from the line of the front seat into the aisle between this seat and the railing at the front of the balcony. It looked like tar and was a quarter of an inch thick in the center but the edges were solid and gray. The center was gummy, "a putty color like, and sort of sticky." Dust and dirt had accumulated upon this sticky mass and it was much darker than the floor. There was other evidence tending to show that the plaintiff's injuries...