Deagle v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.

• Decision Date: 01 December 1961
• Citation: 343 Mass. 263,178 N.E.2d 286
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
• Parties: Ida DEAGLE v. GREAT ATLANTIC & PACIFIC TEA COMPANY.

Page 286

178 N.E.2d 286

343 Mass. 263

Ida DEAGLE v. GREAT ATLANTIC & PACIFIC TEA COMPANY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Argued Oct. 4, 1961.

Decided Dec. 1, 1961.

Charles W. O'Brien, Boston, for the defendant.

Richard E. Wood, Boston, for the plaintiff.

Before WILKINS, C. J., and SPALDING, CUTTER, KIRK and SPIEGEL, JJ.

KIRK, Justice.

The plaintiff, a business invitee of the defendant, was awarded damages by a jury for injuries sustained by her in a fall in the defendant's self-service store. The defendant excepted to the denial by the judge of its motion for a directed verdict and to certain portions of the judge's charge.

The jury could have found the following facts. The plaintiff arrived at the store about 11 A. M. and, after shopping in the store for twenty or twenty-five minutes, went to the front of the store and took her place third or fourth in a line of customers near a cash register where an employee of the defendant was checking out purchases. The cash register was directly in front of and fifteen feet away from the spot in the aisle where the plaintiff later fell. While the plaintiff was standing in line for three to five minutes, she looked up the aisle behind her and saw no one go up the aisle. The plaintiff then walked nearly halfway up the aisle, and had a 'terrific fall'; she fell on her spine in a sitting position; she put her hand on the wooden floor; it was slippery; there was oil there which had a very strong odor of pine. The plaintiff lay down on her left side facing the shelves; she could see plenty of oil; the floor from the bottom shelf to the middle of the aisle was covered with a 'large blotch' of oil. Under the shelf about an arm's length from the plaintiff's face was an empty broken pint bottle with a pine oil label. Pine oil was on display on the shelves of the aisle where the plaintiff was lying. There was also a large box of 'Fab' between the plaintiff and the broken bottle, and the bottom of the box was wet with oil.

The plaintiff testified that the oil 'had time enough to get around everywhere' and that she felt a great deal of it beneath her when she fell. The manager of the defendant testified that 'it is possible that he could have seen the spot, if he had been working on the cash register.'

The defendant's motion should have been allowed. 'The defendant owed to customers a duty to keep the premises reasonably safe for their use. He, however, is not an insurer of safety. Where, without action for which he is responsible, a dangerous condition arises, the law allows him reasonable opportunity to become informed of the danger and to take measures to remedy it. He is not liable, in such a case, unless he is negligent in failing to inform himself and to take appropriate action.' White v. Mugar, 280 Mass. 73, 75, 181 N.E. 725, and cases cited.

The jury were warranted in finding that a dangerous condition in the defendant's store caused the injury to the plaintiff. There was no evidence, however, that the dangerous condition was caused by a person for whose conduct the defendant was responsible or that the defendant's employees knew of the condition. In this state of the case it was incumbent upon the plaintiff to show that the oil had been on the floor for such a length of time that the defendant's employees, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have been aware of its presence and taken steps to remove it or to warn the customers. Foley v. Hotel Touraine Co., 326 Mass. 742, 743, 96 N.E.2d 698.

The length of time the law allows to the defendant for discovery and removal or warning of the dangerous condition is governed by the circumstances of each case. To a large extent it depends...