Criswell v. The Bankers Mortgage Company and C. R. Wilson

• Decision Date: 06 July 1929
• Docket Number: 28,831
• Parties: MRS. J. H. CRISWELL, Appellee, v. THE BANKERS MORTGAGE COMPANY and C. R. WILSON, Appellants
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

278 P. 722

128 Kan. 609

MRS. J. H. CRISWELL, Appellee, v. THE BANKERS MORTGAGE COMPANY and C. R. WILSON, Appellants

No. 28,831

Supreme Court of Kansas

July 6, 1929

Decided July, 1929.

Appeal from Jewell district court; WILLIAM R. MITCHELL, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

1. INNKEEPERS--Liability for Injury to Guest--Injury from Unlighted Hallway--Pleading. In an action against a hotel keeper for damages, plaintiff alleged that she was a guest of the hotel and had a room assigned to her, that her familiarity with the hotel was limited to a general knowledge of the location of her room, to reach which she had to pass along a dimly lighted hallway, and that there was an open door and unguarded stairway in that hallway near her room and no warning of its presence, and that she inadvertently walked through the doorway and fell down the stairway and was injured. Held, that as against a general demurrer the petition stated a cause of action for the hotel keeper's negligence and did not contain facts from which it could be inferred or declared as a matter of law that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence.

2. SAME--Liability for Injury to Guest--Duty of Hotel Keeper. It is the duty of a hotel keeper to keep in a reasonably safe condition those portions of his hotel where his guests may be expected to come and go, and it cannot be said as a matter of law that there was no actionable negligence in his failure to sufficiently light a hallway through which the plaintiff had to go to reach her room and whereby she walked through an open doorway and fell down a stairway and was injured, but the issues of fact concerning the hotel keeper's negligence and of plaintiff's contributory negligence were for the jury.

3. SAME--Statute Does Not Apply. The statute (R. S. 36-101 et seq.) regulating hotels and describing the duties and powers of the hotel inspector and matters incidental thereto considered, and held to have no substantial bearing on the cause of action alleged by plaintiff, nor on the defenses of law or fact which defendant may interpose thereto.

R. C. Postlethwaite, D. H. Postlethwaite, both of Mankato, and Nelson J. Ward, of Belleville, for the appellants.

Donald Stanley and George Teeple, both of Mankato, for the appellee.

OPINION

DAWSON, J.:

This is an appeal from a judgment overruling defendants' demurrer to a petition in which plaintiff sought to recover damages for injuries she sustained in falling down a stairway in defendants' hotel.

Plaintiff's petition alleged that defendants conducted a public hotel in Mankato, and that on January 2, 1928, she was a guest therein and had a room assigned to her. Plaintiff alleged that she was not familiar with the hotel except that she had a general knowledge of the location of her room; that about 8 o'clock in the evening she had to go along a hallway to reach her room, and that this hallway was insufficiently lighted; that near her room was a stairway leading down to a basement, and that the door to the stairway was open and unguarded, with no warning or barrier to apprise her of danger or prevent her making a mistake, and that all of these conditions existed because of the negligence of defendants; and that she set out from the hotel lobby to her room, and--

"While so proceeding, without negligence on her part, she reached the aforesaid opening to the east of said hallway, and there being no barrier, no warning and not sufficient light to apprise her of the true situation and of her danger, or to prevent mistake, she turned east at the said opening and was precipitated down said stairs to the basement of said hotel."

Plaintiff concluded with allegations concerning her injuries for which she prayed damages.

Defendants demurred on the ground that plaintiff's petition did not state a cause of action. This demurrer being overruled, the case is brought here for review; and on the error thus assigned defendants argue the insufficiency of the petition and that it contained allegations of fact which were tantamount to a confession of contributory negligence.

Following the course of defendants' argument, their first point is that there is a statute which makes it the duty of the hotel commissioner (R. S. 36-108) to see to it that every hotel is properly equipped and its premises put in a condition to meet the requirements of the act governing the conduct of hotels; that the act provides a fine of $ 5 per day for failure to comply with its terms, and provides for the closing of the hotel if it is not set to rights after a conviction of the hotel keeper; that one section of the act (R. S. 36-110) specifically provides, among other matters, that every hotel shall be properly lighted, and that "such proper lighting shall be construed to apply to both daylight and illumination. " The statute (R. S. 36-122) further provides the kind of notice to be served by the hotel commissioner and how service may be made, after which the hotel keeper has thirty days in which to comply with those requirements. From this critical examination of the statute defendants deduce the conclusion that there is no duty resting on the hotel keeper to properly light his hotel until the hotel commissioner has determined what is necessary to be done to bring his lighting facilities up to the standard prescribed by law, and that until he has been served with the statutory notice he cannot be guilty of any possible culpability or legal delinquency until a lapse of thirty days thereafter. The contention is made that aside from the governance of the statute there is no duty resting on the hotel keeper to light his hotel. Furthermore, defendants contend that since the petition did not allege that the hotel commissioner had determined that the hall along which plaintiff walked was insufficiently lighted, or that notice to that effect had been given, and that defendants had failed to meet any requirements of the hotel commissioner, it must be presumed that the lighting facilities of the hotel were adequate under the statute, and consequently the explicit allegation in plaintiff's petition that the hallway along which she had to go was insufficiently lighted must be ignored and disregarded, and that there was no failure to conform to the law and no liability resting on defendants for the injuries sustained by plaintiff.

Many pages of defendants' brief are formulated around the foregoing argument, and while we have taken considerable space to state defendants' contention, and trust we have stated it fairly, we feel impelled to dispose of it by a frank avowal that such argument and contention do not commend themselves to our judgment; that all defendants have to say about the hotel commissioner and his statutory duties and the presumption that he has performed them have no practical bearing on this lawsuit. Plaintiff's petition alleged that the corridor along which she had to pass to reach her room was...