Claypool v. Wigmore

• Decision Date: 22 June 1904
• Docket Number: 4,704
• Citation: 71 N.E. 509,34 Ind.App. 35
• Parties: CLAYPOOL v. WIGMORE
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

71 N.E. 509

34 Ind.App. 35

CLAYPOOL v. WIGMORE

No. 4,704

Court of Appeals of Indiana

June 22, 1904

Rehearing denied November 15, 1904.

Appeal from Superior Court of Marion County (62,498); Vinson Carter Judge.

Action by Lida Wigmore against Edward F. Claypool for damages for personal injuries. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.

Reversed.

E. E Stevenson and E. H. Knight, for appellant.

J. W. Holtzman and H. N. Spaan, for appellee.

OPINION

WILEY, J.

Appellee was plaintiff below and recovered a judgment against appellant for $ 4,000 on account of personal injuries sustained by her, resulting from the imputed negligence of appellant. Her injuries were occasioned by falling down an elevator shaft from the ground floor to the basement, in a building owned by appellant; and the specific negligence charged was in leaving the elevator door open, and that the entrance leading from the front door of the building to the elevator shaft was not properly lighted.

Several errors were assigned, but the one which challenges the overruling of appellant's motion for judgment on answers to interrogatories notwithstanding the general verdict is the only one necessary to consider, for the facts thus found affirmatively show that appellee is without legal redress against appellant.

The facts upon which the respective rights of the parties must be determined, as exhibited by the answers to interrogatories, may properly be stated in narrative form as follows: The hallway where the elevator shaft was located was adequately lighted. The day on which appellee was injured was clear. The elevator shaft and grating enclosing it were clearly and easily seen upon entering the outer door. The elevator shaft looked different to one approaching the open door when the cage was there and when it was not there. When appellee entered the building the door of the elevator shaft was open about eight inches. She was in company with a gentleman by the name of Wallsmith, and he opened the door of the shaft so she could enter. When Wallsmith opened the door, appellee walked right into the open shaft, without heeding whether the cage was there or not. The floor of the elevator cage was about three feet five inches by six feet six inches, and the floor was different in color from the elevator shaft leading to the basement. If appellee had looked carefully before stepping into the elevator shaft, she could have seen that the cage and elevator operator were not there. She had ridden on the elevator several times prior to the accident, and knew that the cage was operated by a man, who stood inside, and had observed that no one but this operator opened the door and let passengers in and out. The door of the cage was opened from the inside, except on the occasion of appellee's injury. Mr. Wallsmith was not the operator of the elevator, was not an employe of appellant, and appellee knew said facts. If appellee had looked when she entered the building, she could have seen that the door of the elevator was closed, or nearly closed. The operator of the elevator, standing at his lever in the cage, was visible through the grating, even when the door was closed. Neither the operator, nor any other person in appellant's employ, threw open the door leading to the elevator shaft as appellee approached the shaft. Wallsmith opened the door without any authority from appellant so to do. Neither the appellee nor Wallsmith paused for any time just as they reached the elevator shaft. When they entered the building another person was waiting in the lobby, who could have been seen by appellee, if she had looked, and she did not look about her as she approached the elevator shaft. The floor and walls of the hallway leading to the elevator shaft were light in color. The door opening into the elevator shaft was a sliding one, and was twenty-six inches wide, and the catch on the door was on the inside. This door was thrown wide open and so left when the cage was at the floor. The light from the street was amply sufficient to reveal a clear view of the elevator grating and door. From the time appellee entered the building to the time she stepped into the elevator shaft, she did not stop. It was fifteen feet from the door where she entered to the elevator shaft, and she was familiar with the surroundings and location of the shaft. Appellee was in possession of good eyesight and hearing, and had used this elevator at least twenty-two times prior to the accident. The accident resulting in appellee's injury would not have happened had it not been for the negligence of Wallsmith in opening the cage door, and it would have been impossible for appellee to have fallen into the elevator shaft if the door leading thereto had been left as it was when she and Wallsmith entered the building. Her action in stepping into the shaft was voluntary on her part. The operator of the elevator stood in the car just inside the door, and in plain view of one approaching the elevator from the front, when the door was open.

We must determine the rights of the respective parties upon the facts specially found, and keep in mind the fact that the building in which appellee was injured was a public place, where she was invited and had a right to be. From the view of the law which we have taken, as applied to the facts found, we do not deem it necessary to discuss or decide the question of appellant's negligence, as a principle of law is involved which absolves him from liability. While the facts in the first instance do not show that appellant's agent, or servant, left the door of the elevator shaft open a width of eight inches, yet, if it may be conceded that he did, that fact was not the proximate cause of the injury, for it is affirmatively found that if the door had been left in the condition it was when appellee reached it she could not have been injured.

1. The direct and proximate cause of her injury was the opening of the door by Wallsmith, with which act appellant was in nowise connected, and for which he was not responsible. A proximate cause is well defined in the following language: "A proximate cause may be defined as that cause which in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient, intervening cause, produced the result complained of, and without which that result would not have occurred." 16 Am. and Eng. Ency. Law, p. 436. In the case of Baltimore, etc., R. Co. v. State (1870), 33 Md. 542, the supreme court of Maryland, defining "remote" and "proximate" cause, said: "By proximate cause' is intended an act which directly produced, or concurred directly in producing, the injury. By remote cause' is intended that which may have happened, and yet no injury have occurred, notwithstanding that no injury could have occurred, if it had not happened." The "proximate cause" must, as a legal sequence, be that from which something directly results.

2. The rule is well stated by the supreme court of West Virginia in the case of Washington v. Baltimore, etc., R. Co. (1880), 17 W.Va. 190, where the court says, on page 196: "The act or omission, which constitutes negligence, must be such as directly produces as its natural consequence an injury to another. And therefore if a party do an act, which might naturally produce an injury to another as its consequence, but, before any such injury results, a third person does some act or omits to perform some act, which it was his duty to perform, and this act or omission of such third person is the immediate cause of an injury, which would not have occurred but for his negligence, such third person is responsible for such injury and not the party guilty of the first negligence; for the causal connection between the first act of negligence and the injury is broken by the interposition of the act or omission of the third party. And this act or omission of the third party is in law regarded as the cause of the injury, and the act of the first party is in law regarded as a mere condition, according to the maxim: In jure non remota causa sed proxima spectatur.'" The law looks to the proximate, and not the remote cause. We think the proximate cause which leads to a result must be regarded and understood to be that which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any new or other cause, produces the result.

3. If it be conceded that the facts show that appellant was negligent in the first instance, they in like manner show and it is so conceded, that appellee's injury would not have resulted from such negligence, but was the direct and proximate result of the negligent act of an independent, responsible and intervening agency. In such case it has many times been ruled that the party guilty of negligence in the first instance is not liable. ...