Dickson v. Emporium Mercantile Co., Inc.

• Citation: 259 N.W. 375,193 Minn. 629
• Decision Date: 08 March 1935
• Docket Number: 30255.
• Parties: DICKSON v. EMPORIUM MERCANTILE Co., Inc.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

259 N.W. 375

193 Minn. 629

DICKSON v. EMPORIUM MERCANTILE Co., Inc.

No. 30255.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

March 8, 1935

Appeal from District Court, Ramsey County; John W. Boerner, Judge.

Action by Ella M. Dickson against the Emporium Mercantile Company Inc. From an order denying her motion for new trial, after instructed verdict for defendant, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Customer held not entitled to recover from storekeeper for injuries sustained when customer stumbled and fell in stepping out of lavatory to hallway floor at lower level, on theory that storekeeper was negligent in having lavatory door open towards hall and in not posting sign warning of difference in floor levels.

Syllabus by the Court .

The general rule is that a shopkeeper is under legal obligation to keep and maintain his premises in reasonably safe condition for use as to all whom he expressly or impliedly invites to enter the same.

Upon the facts stated in the opinion it is held that the court properly instructed a verdict for defendant for the reason that this rule had not been violated by defendant.

Daggett, Redlund & Burke, of St. Paul, for appellant.

Bundlie & Kelley, of St. Paul, for respondent.

JULIUS J. OLSON, Justice.

Plaintiff appeals from an order denying her motion for new trial after the court below had instructed a verdict for defendant. Defendant operates a large department store in St Paul. On June 18, 1932, at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, plaintiff was at defendant's store and made several purchases. Having completed these, she asked one of the clerks where she might find a lavatory. Upon being informed in that respect, she promptly went thereto. The women's lavatory is at a level six and one-half inches above that of the floor of the hallway leading thereto. The hallway floor is covered with brown linoleum. The floor of the lavatory is of white tile. The door thereto operates outward, that is, from the lavatory into the hall. As plaintiff was entering the lavatory, another woman entered immediately ahead of her. Plaintiff remained therein but a brief period and upon leaving, evidently forgetting that she had stepped up to enter the lavatory and claiming that she was unaware that ‘ the step was there,’ stumbled and fell and thereby received the injury of which she complains and for which damages are sought in this action. The hallway and the lavatory were well lighted. There is no claim of any defect anywhere, nor is there any suggestion that the floor of either the hall or the lavatory was slippery or that any foreign substance on either floor had caused her to trip or slip. Her sole basis for recovery is that it was negligent for defendant to have the door open toward the hall instead of inwardly into the lavatory and that defendant failed to have any sign on the lavatory door or elsewhere warning plaintiff that there was a difference...