Gibeson v. Skidmore

• Citation: 122 A. 747
• Decision Date: 19 November 1923
• Docket Number: No. 57.,57.
• Parties: GIBESON v. SKIDMORE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

122 A. 747

GIBESON

v. SKIDMORE.

No. 57.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Nov. 19, 1923.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Black and Gardner, JJ., dissenting.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by Grace M. Gibeson against David Skidmore. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

Freeman Woodbrldge, of New Brunswick, for appellant.

R. E. & A. D. Watson, of New Brunswick, for respondent.

TRENCHARD, J. On January 24, 1922, David Skidmore, the defendant below, leased to Elmer Boyd, who acted for the Highland Park Library Association, "all of store and storeroom" on the first floor of premises in Highland Park, "with access to rear entrance, also use of sink and water" in the rear room.

On March 22, 1922, the plaintiff, Miss Gibeson, fell into the cellar through an open trap under the stairs at a point adjoining, if not indeed part of, the rear room, and thereafter brought this action to recover from the landlord damages resulting to her from such fall. The trial, at the Middlesex circuit, resulted in a verdict for the defendant, directed by the judge, and the plaintiff appealed from the consequent judgment. We are of the opinion that such direction of a verdict cannot be sustained.

The evidence tended to show that the plaintiff was on the premises as assistant to the librarian of the association to whom the owner had rented the front room; that when injured she was using part of the back room which, under the lease, the tenants had a right to use, in common with the owner, for access to the rear entrance and sink in that room; that, as she was in the act of taking her coat and hat from a hook in the wall, she fell through an opening in the floor, of which she had no knowledge, the trapdoor of which had been raised by the defendant after she had placed her hat and coat there.

Now the rule is that an owner or occupier of premises, who by express invitation, or by invitation to be implied from acts and conduct, induces a person to make use of the premises, is under a duty to exercise ordinary care to render the premises reasonably safe for such purposes. Phillips v. Library Co., 55 N. J. Law, 307, 27 Atl. 478.

In the instant case the defendant contended, and the learned trial judge thought, that there was no evidence of invitation express or implied, and hence the plaintiff was a mere licensee to whom the defendant owed no duty except to refrain from acts willfully injurious. But we think there was evidence tending to show an invitation implied from the acts and conduct of the defendant from which arose the duty of reasonable care.

The gist of the liability, where it exists in cases such as this, consists in the fact that the injured party did not act merely on motives of her own, to which no act or sign of the owner or occupier contributed, but that she entered the premises because she was led by the acts or conduct of the owner or occupier to believe that the premises were intended to be used in the manner in which she used them, and that such use was not only acquiesced in, but was in accordance with the intention or design for which the way or place...