Connolly v. Nicollet Hotel

Citation74 A.L.R.2d 1227,254 Minn. 373,95 N.W.2d 657
Decision Date27 February 1959
Docket NumberNo. 37180,37180
Parties, 74 A.L.R.2d 1227 Marcella A. CONNOLLY, Appellant, v. NICOLLET HOTEL et al., Defendants, Nicollet Hotel and Alice Shmikler, as trustee of Joseph Shmikler et al., d.b.a. The Nicollet Hotel, Respondents.
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota (US)

Syllabus by the Court

1. Where a hotelkeeper knows or has reason to know of the danger of injury to passers-by from the acts of its transient guests within the hotel, it is under the duty to take reasonable steps to avoid such injury.

2. One who assembles a large number of people upon his premises for the purpose of financial gain to himself assumes responsibility for using all reasonable care to protect others from injuyr from causes reasonably to be anticipated. In the exercise of this duty it is necessary for him to furnish a sufficient number of guards or attendants and to take precautions to control the actions of the crowd. Whether the guards furnished or the precautions taken are sufficient is ordinarily a question for the jury to determine.

3. The common-law test of duty is the probability of injury to others. The risk of injury to others reasonably to be perceived within the range of apprehension defines the duty to be obeyed.

4. For the risk of injury be within a defendant's range of apprehension it is not necessary that the defendant should have notice of the particular method in which an accident might occur, if the possibility of an accident is clear to a person of ordinary prudence.

5. While the standard of care remains the same, the degree of care owed by the defendant varies with the facts and circumstances surrounding each particular case.

6. It is the policy of the law, both statutory and decisional, to protect the public from social consequences of intoxicating liquor, and a hotel operator engaged in that business who permits crowds to gather upon his premises for profit must recognize the risks which flow from the nature of the business.

7. Where the operator of a hotel permitted its facilities to be used in the conduct of a convention attended by more than 4,000 young men, 350 to 400 of whom were registered guests, during which convention intoxicating liquor was sold and dispensed free of charge at 'hospitality centers' throughout the building; where after several days the hotel management had notice of a course of disorderly conduct followed by its guests as evidenced by damage to the hotel property, objects being thrown from the upper floors of the building, and where hallways and adjacent premises were daily littered with the debris of broken glasses and bottles, a question was presented to the jury as to whether or not the defendant had notice or should have foreseen that in the course of such conduct objects might be thrown from hotel windows to the sidewalk below as a result of which members of the public would be exposed to bodily harm.

8. Where a hotelkeeper whose premises were used as headquarters for a convention attended by more than 4,000 young men, after notice of the disorderly nature of the convention, failed to make any request to convention authorities to control the conduct of those attending the convention, and where he failed to request additional police protection or to hire additional guards after it became apparent that the convention was 'out of control,' a question was presented to the jury under facts recited in opinion as to whether or not the defendants in the exercise of reasonable care used such precautions as the circumstances required to protect members of the public using adjacent streets from harm resulting from objects being thrown from the hotel premises to the sidewalk below.

9. A pedestrian using a sidewalk adjacent to a hotel where intoxicating liquor is sold and dispensed has the right to assume that the owner will exercise reasonable care to the end that the acts and conduct permitted upon the property will not expose a member of the public to the risk of bodily harm.

10. Whether the proprietors of a hotel, having notice of the disorderly behavior of their guests and invitees, took such steps as a person of ordinary prudence would take to protect others from foreseeable hazards resulting from disorderly conduct was a question of fact for the jury.

11. The law does not require every fact and circumstance which make up a case of negligence to be proved by direct and positive evidence or by the testimony of eyewitnesses, and circumstantial evidence alone may authorize a finding of negligence. Negligence may be inferred from all of the facts and surrounding circumstances and, where the evidence of such facts and circumstances is such as to take the case out of the realm of conjecture and into the field of legitimate inference from established facts, a prima facie case is made.

G. M. Sullivan and Charles R. Murnane, Murnane & Murnane, St. Paul, for appellant.

Meagher, Geer, Markham & Anderson, O. C. Adamson, II, and Wm. T. Egan, Minneapolis, for respondents.

MURPHY, Justice.

Action by Marcella A. Connolly against The Nicollet Hotel, a copartnership, and Alice Shmikler, as trustee of Joseph Shmikler, and others, doing business as The Nicollet Hotel, for the loss of the sight of her left eye alleged to have been caused by defendants' negligence.

The accident occurred about midnight June 12, 1953, during the course of the 1953 National Junior Chamber of Commerce Convention which had its headquarters at The Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis. It was occasioned when plaintiff was struck in her left eye by a substance falling from above her as she walked on a public sidewalk on Nicollet Avenue adjacent to the hotel.

The 1953 National Junior Chamber of Commerce Convention, Inc., was joined as a defendant in the action, but at the close of the testimony a verdict was directed in its favor. The jury returned a verdict against The Nicollet Hotel copartnership, which will hereinafter be designated defendants, in the sum of $30,000. This is an appeal from an order of the trial court granting judgment for such defendants notwithstanding the verdict. On appeal plaintiff contends that defendants were negligent in failing to maintain order and control the conduct of their guests with respect to persons using the sidewalk adjacent to the hotel building and that hence the court erred in granting judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

The evidence, presented entirely by plaintiff inasmuch as defendants rested at the conclusion of plaintiff's case, established the following: The easterly side of The Nicollet Hotel is adjacent to Nicollet Avenue. The hotel lies between Washington Avenue to the north and Third Street to the south. It is a 12-story building, but on the Nicollet Avenue side it is limited to eight stories in height. It has a capacity of approximately 490 sleeping rooms on the upper eleven floors. There are no other high buildings in its vicinity. Just south of the hotel on Nicollet Avenue is The Nicollet Hotel garage also operated by defendants. On the east side of Nicollet Avenue opposite the hotel were two 4-story buildings. To the south of these is a parking lot.

Nicollet Avenue in his block is about 50 feet in width. The sidewalks adjacent to it on each side are about 10 feet in width from curb line to building line. At the time of the accident that half of the west sidewalk nearest to the hotel was blocked off by a barricade from the Nicollet Avenue hotel entrance south for about 95 feet, leaving an area about 5 feet in width for pedestrian traffic for such distance. The hotel entrance on Nicollet Avenue is about midway between Washington Avenue and the entrance to the hotel garage.

The time of the accident there was nothing unusual about the weather. Plaintiff, in company with one Margaret Hansen, had just left the hotel via its Nicollet Avenue entrance and was walking southerly toward Third Street on the west side of Nicollet Avenue. When she had traveled approximately six to ten steps from the canopy extending over such entrance, she observed two people walking toward her. She then heard a noise which sounded like a small explosion and saw something strike the walk in front of her. She observed that one of the persons approaching her was struck on the left shoulder by some substance. She then exclaimed, 'We better get off this sidewalk, * * * or somebody is going to get hit.' Immediately thereafter she glanced upward and was struck in the left eye by a substance she described as a mud-like substance or a 'handful of dirt.' Margaret Hansen testified that she also saw the substance falling from eye level to the sidewalk a step or two in front of her. She described the sound made by the striking object as explosive and accompanied by a splattering. The only place from which the article might have fallen from above was the hotel building.

The blow which struck plaintiff caused her to lose her balance but not to fall. Her knees buckled and she was caught by Margaret Hansen and held on her feet. Following the blow, she stated that she could not open her left eye and the left side of her face and head became numb, and her shoulders, hair, and the left side of her face were covered with dirt. A dark substance which looked like mud was found imbedded in her left eye. After the acciden the assistant manager of the hotel attempted to remove a 'mud like substance' from plaintiff's eye by using a cotton applicator. As a result of the foregoing accident, plaintiff lost the sight of the injured eye.

As stated above, the 1953 National Junior Chamber of Commerce Convention occupied a substantial portion of the hotel at the time of the accident. In connection therewith various delegates and firms maintained hospitality centers there where intoxicants, beer, and milk were served to guests and visitors. Two of such centers were located on the Nicollet Avenue side of the building.

The assistant manager of the hotel on duty...

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    • United States
    • Minnesota Supreme Court
    • March 25, 1983
    ...have often held that negligence is not to be determined by whether the particular injury was foreseeable. Connolly v. Nicollet Hotel, 254 Minn. 373, 381-82, 95 N.W.2d 657, 664 (1959); Albertson v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Co., 242 Minn. 50, 64 N.W.2d 175 (1954). The......
  • Bjerke v. Johnson
    • United States
    • Minnesota Supreme Court
    • December 27, 2007
    ...which injury will occur "if the possibility of an accident was clear to the person of ordinary prudence." Connolly v. Nicollet Hotel, 254 Minn. 373, 381-82, 95 N.W.2d 657, 664 (1959). When it is clear whether an incident was foreseeable, the courts decide the issue as a matter of law, but i......
  • Cracraft v. City of St. Louis Park
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    ...N.W.2d 868, 874 (1966); Rosin v. International Harvester Co., 262 Minn. 445, 451, 115 N.W.2d 50, 54 (1962); Connolly v. Nicollet Hotel, 254 Minn. 373, 381, 95 N.W.2d 657, 664 (1959). Application of this reasonable foreseeability standard to this case clearly shows that, under a proper commo......
  • Domagala v. Rolland
    • United States
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    ...plaintiff. See Moorhead Econ. Dev. Auth. v. Anda, 789 N.W.2d 860, 888 (Minn.2010); Flom, 291 N.W.2d at 916; Connolly v. Nicollet Hotel, 254 Minn. 373, 381, 95 N.W.2d 657, 664 (1959). In other words, when a person acts in some manner that creates a foreseeable risk of injury to another, the ......
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