Dawson v. Carolina Power & Light Co.

• Decision Date: 24 November 1965
• Docket Number: No. 609,609
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Frances Perry DAWSON v. CAROLINA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY.

Page 831

144 S.E.2d 831

265 N.C. 691

Frances Perry DAWSON v. CAROLINA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY.

No. 609.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Nov. 24, 1965.

Ottway Burton, Asheboro, for plaintiff appellant.

Smith & Casper, Asheboro, Sherwood H. Smith, Jr., and A. Y. Arledge, Raleigh, for defendant appellee.

PARKER, Justice.

This is a civil action to recover damages for personal injuries resulting from a fall in defendant's office at 318 Sunset Avenue, Asheboro, North Carolina, allegedly caused by defendant's actionable negligence in, during a rainy day, permitting dampness or water to be on its office floor, and in not providing a floor mat for customers to wipe their feet on. Defendant in its answer denies that it was negligent, and conditionally pleads contributory negligence of plaintiff.

Plaintiff assigns as error the judgment of compulsory nonsuit entered at the close of her evidence by the court on defendant's motion.

Plaintiff's evidence, considered in the light most favorable to her, shows the following facts, which we summarize, except when we quote:

Defendant Power and Light Company maintains an office at 318 Sunset Avenue, Asheboro, where its customers may come and pay their bills for electric power furnished them by defendant. For about three years prior to 18 December 1961 plaintiff had gone into this office monthly to pay her bill for electric power furnished to her home by defendant.

On 18 December 1961 it had been raining since she got up. Defendant's office opened about 9 a. m. About 10 a. m. on this morning she entered defendant's office in Asheboro to pay defendant her bill for electric power furnished her home by defendant. The office according to her testimony at one place in the record was 60 to 70 feet wide, and according to her testimony at another place in the record was 30 feet wide. She entered by a swinging glass door, permitting a person to go in and out. The floor to the office was light colored, slick, and highly polished. In the office was a table on the left-hand side and a counter where bills are usually paid. She walked from the door about 25 feet to the table, and paid her bill to a man sitting there. At the time no other person was in the office. After paying her bill, she turned and started walking out of the office. About six feet from the door her 'foot slipped on the dampness on the floor,' and she fell down on the floor, sustaining by reason of her fall personal injuries. She also testified: 'The condition of the wax surface of the floor of the lobby when I walked in was a white highly polished floor and had dampness on the floor where I slipped. It was slick.' She was wearing 'flats,' rubber-bottom shoes. In walking out she watched where she was going. There was no floor mat at the entrance to defendant's office.

After plaintiff fell, her husband, who was in a barber shop for the purpose of having his hair cut, was notified of her fall and went to defendant's office. When he went in the office there was 'a little mud' and 'a little bit of water' and dampness on its floor just inside the door. His wife was sitting in a chair crying, and the left side of her dress was muddy and damp.

Plaintiff's evidence shows that in entering defendant's office to pay her bill to defendant she had invitee status. 3 Strong's N.C. Index, Negligence, § 37a; 65 C.J.S. Negligence § 43(1).

However, defendant was not an insurer of the safety of plaintiff who entered its office during business hours to pay her bill. Long v. National Food Stores, 262 N.C. 57, 136 S.E.2d 275; Powell v. Deifells, Inc., 251 N.C. 596, 112 S.E.2d 56; 38 Am.Jur., Negligence, § 131.

Under the circumstances shown by plaintiff's evidence, the law imposed upon defendant the legal duty to exercise ordidinary care to keep in a reasonably safe condition the entrance to its office and the floor where plaintiff is expected to go on the premises in paying her bill, so as not unnecessarily to expose her to danger, and to give her warning of hidden dangers or unsafe conditions of which it knew, or in the exercise of reasonable supervision and inspection should know. Long v. National Food Stores, supra; Raper v. McCrory-McLellan Corp., 259 N.C. 199, 130 S.E.2d 281; Powell v. Deifells, Inc., supra.

In Long v. National Food Stores, supra, it is said:

'The inviter is charged with knowledge of an unsafe or dangerous condition on his premises during business hours created by his own negligence or the negligence of an employee acting within the scope of his employment, or of a dangerous condition of which his employee has notice. In such cases the inviter is liable if injury to an invitee proximately results therefrom, because the inviter is deemed to have knowledge of his own and his employees' acts. [Citing authority.] But where the unsafe or dangerous condition is created by a third party, or where there is no evidence of the origin thereof, an invitee proximately injured thereby may not recover, unless he can show that the unsafe or dangerous condition had remained there for such length of time that the inviter knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, of its existence. [Citing authority.]'

This is said in 62 A.L.R.2d, Annotation, § 9, p. 57: '* * * [I]t is universally held that the res ipsa loquitur doctrine is inapplicable in suits against business proprietors to recover for injuries sustained in falls on floors within the business premises which are alleged to have been rendered slippery by the presence thereon of water, oil, mud, snow, etc.'

In Blake v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 237 N.C. 730, 75 S.E.2d 921, the Court said: 'So far, however, this Court has not held that water alone, unmixed with oil or grease or other slippery substance, on a floor over which an invitee may be expected to pass, creates a hazard against which the proprietor must guard. Counsel do not call our attention to any decision from any other jurisdiction to that effect.'

Plaintiff has no allegation in her complaint that there was mud on the floor of defendant's office. Her allegation and her own testimony are that she slipped on the wet or damp floor. The only evidence as to mud is the testimony of her husband that when he entered the office after his wife fell, there was 'a little mud' just inside the door on the floor of the office, and on the left side of her dress.

No inference of actionable...