FAD Ltd. Partnership v. Feagley, 861018

• Decision Date: 03 March 1989
• Docket Number: No. 861018,861018
• Citation: 237 Va. 413,377 S.E.2d 437
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: FAD LIMITED PARTNERSHIP and Beltway Management, Inc. v. Margaret FEAGLEY. Record

Page 437

377 S.E.2d 437

237 Va. 413

FAD LIMITED PARTNERSHIP and Beltway Management, Inc. v. Margaret FEAGLEY.

Record No. 861018.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

March 3, 1989.

Michael L. Zimmerman (Brault, Palmer, Grove & Zimmerman, Fairfax, on brief), for appellants.

Stephen A. Armstrong (Robert B. Machen, Fairfax, on brief), for appellee.

Present: All the Justices.

WHITING, Justice.

In this case, we decide whether a landlord had a duty to remove ice from the porch and steps of an apartment house while moisture was still falling and freezing.

On December 28, 1983, Margaret Feagley, a tenant in a large apartment complex owned by FAD Limited Partnership and managed by Beltway Management, Inc. (the landlord), suffered a compression fracture in her upper back when she fell on the icy surface of the front porch of her apartment house. Feagley sued the landlord. A jury returned a verdict in favor of Feagley in the sum of $30,000. The landlord appeals the judgment entered upon the verdict, contending that the trial judge erred in submitting the issue of its negligence to the jury.

Well-established appellate principles control our consideration of the evidence. Because Feagley has recovered a verdict on the issue of the landlord's negligence, we view the facts on that issue in the light most favorable to her. Litchford v. Hancock, 232 Va. 496, 497, 352 S.E.2d 335, 336 (1987).

Mary Ellen Golden, a neighbor of Feagley, testified that at 11:00 p.m. the night before Feagley fell, it was drizzling, and that the front steps of the apartment house were icy. The next morning, the front steps were icy when Golden left at 7:30 a.m., and again at 8:00 a.m. when she returned. Although Golden testified that moisture was not falling when she left, she said that it was drizzling when she returned.

Just before she left her apartment about 8:45 a.m. on the morning she fell, Feagley looked out of her second story apartment window and noticed it was cold and wet outside. At trial, she did not remember whether it was raining that morning. Just after she had taken three steps across the front porch and was reaching for the handrail, Feagley fell on the icy porch. Feagley did not return to her apartment but was taken to the hospital.

Jerry L. Ansley, a maintenance man employed by the landlord, and William Frank Conard, the landlord's maintenance engineer, came to Feagley's apartment that morning about 8:15 a.m. in response to her call about a stopped-up toilet. Ansley testified that it was misty when they walked to the apartment, and he noticed ice around the rails of the porch as he went in the apartment house but saw none on the steps. About 20 minutes later, when Ansley left to handle another matter, everything was "freezing over as soon as the rain hit."

Conard, who thought he and Ansley arrived at Feagley's apartment about 8:30 a.m., testified it was starting to mist as they walked to the apartment...