Charles v. Com. Motors, Inc.
| Decision Date | 25 January 1954 |
| Citation | 195 Va. 576,79 S.E.2d 594 |
| Parties | MATTIE HOGG CHARLES v. COMMONWEALTH MOTORS, INCORPORATED |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
J. L. Atkins, Charles E. Ford and Murray, Ford, West & Wilkinson, for the plaintiff in error.
John W. Fussell and Stuart L. Williams, for the defendant in error.
The plaintiff, Mrs. Charles, brought this action against the defendant, Commonwealth Motors, Incorporated, for damages for injuries suffered by her when she fell in the defendant's place of business. At the conclusion of the evidence offered by both sides the court struck out the plaintiff's evidence on the ground that it did not make out a case. The jury accordingly returned a verdict for the defendant. The only question on this appeal is whether the court erred in striking out the plaintiff's evidence.
There is little conflict in the evidence and upon such as exists the plaintiff's evidence now prevails. Our inquiry is whether reasonable minds could differ in regard to the facts and the proper inferences to be drawn therefrom. Acme Markets v. Remschel, 181 Va. 171, 179, 24 S.E. (2d) 430, 434.
Admittedly the plaintiff was on the defendant's premises as its invitee. While the defendant was not an insurer of her safety, it owed her the duty to use ordinary care to have its premises reasonably safe for her visit. She had a right to assume that the premises were reasonably safe, and she was not required to be on the lookout for danger in the absence of knowledge or warning of its presence. She was, of course, chargeable with knowledge of a danger which was open and obvious to a person exercising reasonable care for his own safety. Knight v. Moore, 179 Va. 139, 145-6, 18 S.E. (2d) 266, 269; Crocker v. WTAR Radio Corp., 194 Va. 572, 574, 74 S.E. (2d) 51, 52-3.
The plaintiff was sixty years of age and had been a public school teacher in Richmond for thirty-two years. The defendant was an automobile dealer in that city with its place of business on Broad street. On January 23, 1951, about 5:00 p.m., the plaintiff, who was interested in buying an automobile, accompanied by her husband, visited the defendant's premises to look at a car there on display in the showroom. Neither had been in the building before. A salesman met them at the entrance, which was at the side of the building and to the rear of the showroom, and led them to the showroom which was entered through a doorway equipped with sliding doors or curtains. This doorway opened upon a ramp a little wider than the doorway, used to drive automobiles in and out of the showroom and also for the use of customers. The floors of both the ramp and the showroom were surfaced with a light-colored, pinkish-white terrazzo. Accurate measurements are not given in the record but it appears that the ramp itself was six feet wide or more. At the doorway it was approximately 12 inches higher than the level of the showroom floor and was about 12 feet long, sloping gradually from the doorway to the floor of the showroom. In approximately the middle of this ramp and immediately in front of the doorway was a black rubber mat about three feet wide, perhaps an eighth of an inch thick, and extending to the bottom of the ramp. From the edge of the mat to the edge of the ramp the terrazzo surface was bare.
As the salesman opened the door and ushered them through, the plaintiff and her husband paused for the salesman to step around and he preceded them down the ramp. The plaintiff and her husband followed -- he holding her left arm, both walking on the mat. When they had taken two or three steps and were about half way down the ramp the plaintiff remarked, 'That is a pretty car;' the salesman replied, 'Let's look at it,' or 'Come look at it.' He had then stepped to their right in front of the car and was calling attention to some feature of it. In order to see, the plaintiff had to step off of the mat and as she made the first step toward the car she placed her foot on the terrazzo surface of the ramp, which proved to be very slippery; her foot slipped from under her, she fell and was injured.
When plaintiff's husband stepped off of the mat on to the surface of the ramp to assist his wife after she fell, he also slipped but did not fall. He said the ramp was 'of a slick surface of tile or something,' and 'was very slick.' The plaintiff said the ramp was of 'very slippery, glazed material.'
There was no evidence contradictory of the plaintiff's evidence that the surface of the ramp was slippery or very slick; nor was there any...
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...ascertaining the reason for the decision of the Court. Without further comment some of those cases are here cited: Charles v. Commonwealth Motors, 195 Va. 576, 79 S.E.2d 594; De Weese v. J. C. Penney Co., 5 Utah 2d 116, 297 P.2d 898, 65 A.L.R.2d 399; Erickson v. Walgreen Drug Co., 120 Utah ......
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