Burgess v. Chicopee Sav. Bank
| Decision Date | 06 November 1957 |
| Citation | 336 Mass. 331,145 N.E.2d 688 |
| Parties | Lyman T. BURGESS v. CHICOPEE SAVINGS BANK. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Robert J. Moran, Springfield, for plaintiff.
Frederick S. Pillsbury, Springfield, for defendant.
Before WILKINS, C. J., and SPALDING, WILLIAMS, COUNIHAN and CUTTER, JJ.
In this action of tort the plaintiff had a verdict, which was recorded under leave reserved. Thereafter, on motion of the defendant, the judge entered a verdict for the defendant, and the plaintiff's exception to this action presents the sole question for decision.
The pertinent evidence may be summarized as follows: The defendant is a savings bank in Chicopee. In order that its permanent quarters might be remodeled, the defendant moved into temporary quarters in October, 1951. The new quarters were located in the first floor banquet hall of a brick building (estimated to be eighty to one hundred years old) on Center Street, one of the two principal streets of Chicopee. The Chicopee post office was diagonally across the street from the temporary quarters and the police station was two hundred yards away. At the time the bank was in its temporary quarters, it had seven or eight employees.
In the temporary quarters the defendant installed protective screens for the tellers and placed signs stating that it was protected by the American Bankers' Association and the Burns Detective Agency. It also installed a Tisco safe which 'is rated as being burglar proof,' and a cash guard drawer. The cash guard drawer is a safe underneath the teller's cash drawer and takes the teller's surplus money from the drawer through a trap door; '[t]his device has a delayed control and takes about fifteen minutes to open.' A plain glass window was installed so that the bank's vault could be seen from the outside by the police. With the exception of the alarm system, all the security precautions which had been taken in the permanent quarters were employed in the temporary quarters. This alarm system consisted of a going outside which was wired to the vault and to buttons in the tellers' cages. It was installed in such a way that it could not be moved. There was a sign on the outside of the building stating that it was the temporary quarters of the bank. No guards were employed by the bank. At the time of the incident hereinafter described the defendant was occupying its temporary quarters.
On December 7, 1951, the plaintiff, a salesman in the employ of Prentice-Hall, Inc., entered the premises of the defendant for the purpose of selling the defendant the tax service of his employer. He approached one Marshall, the defendant's treasurer, and asked him if he could talk with him about the tax service. Marshall invited the plaintiff to sit down and he did so. After taking with Marshall for a few minutes, a man appeared holding a shopping bag over his chest and ordered Marshall to stand up and put up his hands. Marshall asked the man if it was a joke, whereupon the man lowered the shopping bag revealing a 'big 45 calibre gun.' Marshall then 'realized the man meant business' and started to get up but before he could do so the man shot him.
The plaintiff testified that he then 'did a darn fool thing, [that] on a reflex he got up from the chair and chased the man.' The plaintiff followed the assailant through the inner entrance to the bank to a point about half way down the hallway leading to the...
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