Feith v. Kresge Dep't Store Corp.

• Decision Date: 10 January 1935
• Docket Number: No. 12.,12.
• Parties: FEITH v. KRESGE DEPARTMENT STORE CORPORATION.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

176 A. 386

FEITH

v. KRESGE DEPARTMENT STORE CORPORATION.

No. 12.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Jan. 10, 1935.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. There is nothing so Inherently dangerous in a revolving door of the usual type as to call for the presence of an attendant to see passengers safely through it.

2. Plaintiff, alighting from an automobile at one of the entrances of defendant's department store, was escorted by defendant's "footman" across the sidewalk, and guided into one of the quadrants of a revolving door giving access to the store. In some unexplained way she was thrown or pushed out of the revolving door into the store, and injured. Held, that in the absence of any evidence as to any person causing the accident, or of the duties of the footman, or of any notice to him that plaintiff required special assistance, a nonsuit was properly ordered.

The CHIEF JUSTICE, HEHER and PERSKIE, Justices, and VAN BUSKIRK, Judge, dissenting.

Appeal from Supreme court.

Action by Louisa A. Feith against Kresge Department Store Corporation. Judgment for defendant and plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Robert J. McCurrie, of Newark (Wilbur J. Bernard, of Newark, of counsel), for appellant.

Frederic R. Colie, of Newark, for respondent.

KAYS, Judge.

The appeal is from a judgment of nonsuit entered in the Supreme Court, and the granting of the nonsuit is the sole ground of appeal. The case was tried before Judge Porter and a jury at the Essex Circuit.

The plaintiff, a widow 72 years old at the time of the accident giving rise to this suit, was injured while in the act of entering defendant's store as an intending customer, shortly before noon on March 19, 1931. The store in question is in Newark, and extends through from its front on Broad street to its rear on Halsey street, where there was an entrance consisting of a revolving door of the usual type, with an ordinary door on each side. The revolving door was in operation. The plaintiff testified that she was unused to that kind of door, but there was nothing to indicate that that fact was known or made known to any agent of the defendant. Plaintiff's son drove her in his automobile to the curb at the Halsey street entrance, stopped there, and she was assisted to alight by a uniformed attendant employed by defendant, escorted by him across the sidewalk, and guided into one of the quadrant compartments of the revolving door. Her son was in a hurry to get back to work, and drove away as soon as his mother had reached the door, so that he saw nothing of the accident. The doorman, or sidewalk attendant, was called and identified by her son. He testified that he was employed at the Halsey street entrance "as a footman," but was not questioned further by either side. There was no testimony describing the accident except that of plaintiff herself in the following language:

"Well, my son drove me to Newark, to Kresge's store, and as I was in front of the store there a porter came and helped me out of the car and brought me to the entrance of the store, but I had never been there at that entrance, it was strange to me, I don't know what is the name of the street.

"Q. Halsey Street? A. Halsey Street, that is it. I generally came from Broad Street side whenever I went in the store. Well, the porter brought me in there, and there was this new kind of doors, the revolving doors, I wasn't used to them either. So he brought me just to one spike, I was just between the wheel, he came just into the room after one spike and there he left me. I was standing there, I didn't know what to do, I didn't know which way I had to turn it, and it was not more than a wink of an eye, about, I was standing there when I got a terrible blow on the right side that opened the whole wheel and drove me right through and splashed me onto the marble floor."

It will be observed that there is not a word in this testimony to indicate any definite act by any person which caused plaintiff to be thrown out on the floor. The complaint charged a defective door among other things, but the trial court properly pointed out that there was no testimony of any defective condition. Nor is there testimony...