Bruce v. Baer

• Decision Date: 04 December 1934
• Docket Number: No. 23095.,23095.
• Citation: 76 S.W.2d 423
• Parties: BRUCE v. BAER et ux.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

76 S.W.2d 423

BRUCE v. BAER et ux.

No. 23095.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

December 4, 1934.

Rehearing Denied December 18, 1934.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Charles B. Williams, Judge.

"Not to be published in State Reports."

Action by Mary Bruce against Sidney Baer and wife. Verdict for plaintiff, and, from an order sustaining defendants' motion for a new trial, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed, and cause remanded.

S. E. Garner, S. R. Redmond, and Earl M. Pirkey, all of St. Louis, for appellant.

Bishop & Claiborne and John W. Joynt, all of St. Louis, for respondents.

BENNICK, Commissioner.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries received by plaintiff, a domestic servant, when she fell down a stairway in the home of defendants, her employers. Tried to a jury, a verdict was returned in favor of plaintiff, and against defendants, in the sum of $2,000. Thereafter defendants' motion for a new trial was sustained by the court upon the ground that the requested peremptory instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence should have been given; and from the order so entered plaintiff has duly perfected her appeal to this court.

The gist of the negligence pleaded and submitted to the jury was the failure of defendants to have maintained a gate at the head of the stairway and to have had the hallway at that point lighted. Issue was joined upon the separate answers of defendants, each in the form of a general denial.

The accident happened between 4 and 5 o'clock on the morning of April 15, 1932. Plaintiff, a young woman twenty-six years of age, had been in the employ of defendants as a cook since January 12, 1932, slightly more than three months before the accident occurred. She was paid a definite monthly wage, and in addition was furnished her meals and a bedroom in the servants' quarters located in the rear portion of the second floor. A stairway led from the kitchen up to the servants' quarters, opening into a hallway which extended the entire length of the second floor. Plaintiff's bedroom was to the right of the head of the stairs, with a closet intervening, while to the left of the stairs was the bathroom. On the wall space between the stairs and the bathroom door was an electric light switch which controlled the light on the hallway ceiling, the same being located so as to light up the rear of the hallway and the stairs.

The customary occupants of the second floor at night were plaintiff, the nurse, and the family proper, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Baer and their two children, one eight, and the other thirteen, years of age. The rule of the house was that the last person to retire turned out the hall light, which meant that it was usually extinguished by 10 or 11 o'clock.

When plaintiff first entered upon her employment, there was a gate at the head of the stairs which seemingly had been put there for the protection of the children. However, some five weeks before the accident the gate had fallen off its hinges, and had never been replaced, although Mrs. Baer had said almost daily that she intended to have it hung back being fearful that the children might fall as they played in the hallway. Plaintiff, of course, was at all times entirely familiar with the surroundings, including the absence of the gate, inasmuch as her duties required her to go up and down the stairs as much as ten or fifteen times a day.

On the morning in question plaintiff left her bedroom to go to the bathroom, and started on her course through the hall, which was dark at the time, the light, according to the usual practice, having been turned out when the last member of the family had retired. Plaintiff testified that, although the bathroom door was not more than twelve feet from her bedroom door, her bedroom light was not strong enough to light up the hallway at the head of the stairs, and the one small window was at the end of the hall farthest from the bathroom. She ran her hands along the wall feeling for the light switch, and mistakenly thought she had her hand upon it, when instead she fell down the stairway, and sustained the injuries for which she has sued.

Plaintiff admitted that in her own home the lights were all put out when the last member of the family retired, and that, save for one exception, the same practice had been followed in all the homes in which she had worked and slept. The reason why the light was kept burning in the one excepted instance was not given. She also admitted that in the other private homes in which she had worked she had never seen a gate maintained at the head of the stairs.

Defendants stood on plaintiff's case; and, as has already been indicated, the trial resulted in the return of the verdict for plaintiff, followed by the entry of the court's order sustaining defendants' motion for a new trial upon the ground that the case should...