Daley v. Kinsman

• Decision Date: 25 November 1902
• Citation: 182 Mass. 306,65 N.E. 385
• Parties: DALEY v. KINSMAN et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

182 Mass. 306

65 N.E. 385

DALEY v. KINSMAN et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

November 25, 1902

COUNSEL

Daniel N. Crowley, for plaintiff.

H. P. Moulton and G. H. W. Hayes, for defendants.

OPINION

HAMMOND, J.

It is unnecessary to consider all the grounds of defense, as we do not think that the plaintiff has shown that he was in the exercise of due care. Before the accident he had been at the house upon only three occasions, at neither of which had he entered the Andrews tenement. He had gone simply to the front door of the tenement. Between 9 and 10 o'clock in the evening of September 13, 1899, he went, as before, to the same front door, and found it locked. Without making any inquiries as to the cause for the nonappearance of any one at the door, he went around to the rear of the house for the purpose of trying the back door. He never had been there before, but he saw the three platforms and the stairs leading to the same, and he ascended to the upper platform. It was very dark, and he was in a strange place at quite a late hour in the evening. It does not appear that he saw any light, or anything whatever, to indicate whether there was any one in the tenement. Seeing the entrance to the elevator shaft, and apparently making no other examination, he assumed it to be the entrance to the tenement, and walked directly from the head of the stairs, and fell into it. Under the circumstances such conduct seems to us negligent. Campbell v. Abbott, 176 Mass. 246, 57 N.E. 462.

Exceptions overruled.