Brandt v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 08 September 1952
• Docket Number: No. 2,No. 42827,42827,2
• Citation: 252 S.W.2d 339
• Parties: BRANDT v. THOMPSON
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 339

252 S.W.2d 339

BRANDT v. THOMPSON.

No. 42827.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

Sept. 8, 1952.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 10, 1952.

Hullverson & Richardson, St. Louis, for appellant.

J. Porter Henry and Green, Hennings, Henry & Evans, St. Louis, for respondent.

BROADDUS, Special Judge.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff as the result of a fall on a stairway. Plaintiff recovered a judgment of $20,000 against defendant. She remitted $7,500 after a conditional order of the trial court passing upon defendant's motion for a new trial. That motion was then overruled. However, the court sustained defendant's motion for judgment in accordance with its motions for directed verdict and entered judgment for defendant. Plaintiff has appealed.

Plaintiff, Miss Virginia Lee Brandt, was injured on November 22, 1949. She was then 26 years of age. She was employed as an accounting clerk by the American Refrigerator Transit Company, which occupied, as a tenant of defendant, the third floor of the Missouri Pacific Annex Building in St. Louis, Missouri. It had been in the Annex Building 2 or 3 years before this occurrence. There were 13 floors in the Annex, which had a tenant 'population' of about 600 persons, 45 or 50 of whom worked for the American Refrigerator Transit Company, on the third floor. Three elevators with a capacity of 10 persons each ran from the top floor to the lobby. There was also an enclosed fireproof stairwell from the 13th floor to the basement, protected at each floor by fire doors. The steps were of a steel frame type with treads made of concrete or composition. The edge of each step was covered with a grooved steel strip about 3 inches wide. These strips had originally been painted with some black, non-slip material which had worn off in the middle of the stairway where people walked, but which still remained in part at the sides near the walls. Plaintiff's evidence, and some of defendant's evidence tended to show that the metal nosing of the treads where plaintiff fell was worn smooth and slick and had been in that condition for a long time. There were no banisters or handails in the staircase. There was an exit light over the fire door leading from the third floor into the stairwell. After passing through the door at the third floor one is at a landing over which a light is located. When one reached the second floor there was no fire door giving admission into the second floor corridor. The employees of the second floor tenant did not have any use of the elevators or the stairway; they used the exits in the Main Missouri Pacific Building. In other words, one at the second floor landing in the stairwell could not go into the second floor corridor, but would be forced either to return through several turns leading to the third floor or go down the stairway to the lobby.

The record is not clear as to the number of landings and turns in the staircase between the third and second floors. Plaintiff said that there were eight landings between the third floor and the lobby; so that if there were three landings between the second floor and the lobby, as she stated, there would be five turns between the second and third floors.

After reaching the second floor one passes through a wire cage gate which automatically locks as it closes behind one so that it can only be opened from the inside. One is then upon a landing above which another light was located, but it was out on the occasion of plaintiff's injury.

After reaching the landing beyond the wire gate, one turns to the right, descends 8 or 10 steps to a landing where a large window is located, then turns to the left and descends 8 or 9 more steps to a small landing, then turns left at right angles and descends 5 or 6 steps to the lobby. At the time of plaintiff's fall there was no light located at either one of these two landings below the second floor. Down in the lobby there were four 100-watt bulbs in a cluster, located about 12 feet from the last landing. These lights were burning at the time of plaintiff's fall and, by reflection against the wall, cast a dim light up the steps. Some of the witnesses said this light was very poor, but would permit one to detect the shadowy outline of the steps. Others thought that this light was of little, if any, aid in descending the steps.

Plaintiff was injured at about 5:05 p. m., and at that time the large window at the landing between the second floor and the lobby did admit a slight amount of 'dusk' according to one or two witnesses, but virtually none according to others.

The elevators carried their peak loads between 4:45 and 5:30 p. m. Since so many people were wanting to leave the building at 5 p. m., the elevators were crowded by the time that they reached the fourth and third floors and did not often stop. As a result, almost all of the 40 or 50 employees on the third floor used the staircase instead of waiting for the elevators. Plaintiff has used the elevators since her injury but found that this has delayed her departure fifteen minutes. Plaintiff, speaking of those employed on the third floor, said that 'we would go down the stairs because the elevators are always crowded and they don't stop.' The assistant auditor of the American Refrigerator Transit Company for whom plaintiff worked, testified for defendant that he used the steps rather than the elevators. Defendant's building manager, testifying for it, said of the steps: 'They are there for use of the tenants if they wish to use them. There is no restriction upon their use.'

Every evening during the 2 or 3 years that she worked in the Annex, plaintiff used the stairway to leave the building. On this particular day she quit work around 5 p. m., and walked with a number of others to the stairway on the third floor. She was one of the first to leave and many persons from the third and fourth floors were following her. She was with three men who were separated a step apart behind her. Plaintiff testified that there was a light burning at the third floor inside the stairwell. When she reached the second floor she could see through the wire gate that the light above the landing beyond the gate was out. She said she had not paid much attention before to whether or not there were any lights on either of the other two landings below the second floor. She thought there would be a light at the landing below. She said she did not realize how dark the steps were until she got through the wire gate. When asked why she didn't go back she said that 'there were people behind me and would have caused much more congestion and I didn't have any idea how many people were behind me; it was dark, I couldn't see. They were all coming behind me,' so she continued. Some of the men with her struck matches or lighters to assist all of them in their descent.

After leaving the landing at the second floor Miss Brandt safely reached the first landing below where the window was located. She then made a turn to her left and then another and started toward the landing near the lobby. She was holding onto the wall and walking on the left side of the steps, but on reaching the second or third step from the top of this flight of steps her foot slipped on the 'slick edging of the step,' her heel caught, she grabbed for the wall and a railing, which was not there, and fell the balance of the way to the landing, sustaining serious...