Gray v. Sentinel Auto Parks Co.

• Decision Date: 15 March 1972
• Docket Number: No. 229,229
• Citation: 265 Md. 61,288 A.2d 121
• Parties: Geraldine Doris GRAY, to her own use and to the use of Baltimore Sheraton Corp. v. SENTINEL AUTO PARKS COMPANY et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 61

265 Md. 61

288 A.2d 121

Geraldine Doris GRAY, to her own use and to the use of

Baltimore Sheraton Corp. v. SENTINEL AUTO PARKS COMPANY et al.

No. 229.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 15, 1972.

Philip O. Foard, Towson (George W. White, Jr., Buckmaster, White, Mindel & Clarke, Towson, and Lloyd S. Mailman, Baltimore on the brief) for appellant.

Thomas G. Andrew, Baltimore (Rollins, Smalkin, Weston & Andrew, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.

Argued before HAMMOND, C. J., and BARNES, McWILLIAMS, FINAN, SINGLEY, SMITH and DIGGES, JJ.

FINAN, Judge.

In this appeal we are again concerned with the tenuous distinction which the law observes between an invitee and a bare licensee. The case turns on the status of the plaintiff-appellant at the time of her injury.

Mrs. Geraldine Doris Gray, appellant and plaintiff below, formerly employed as a waitress in the now defunct Belvedere Hotel (Hotel) in Baltimore, appeals from a directed verdict granted at the conclusion of her case by the Superior Court of Baltimore City (Mace, J.) in favor of the defendants and appellees, the Sentinel Auto Parks Company (Sentinel) and the Airport Parking Company of America. The Sheraton Hotel Corporation was joined as a beneficial plaintiff in the appellant's suit as a subrogee under a Workmen's Compensation insurance policy.

The appellant sustained the injuries of which she complains on the night of December 29, 1966, while walking to her place of employment, the Hotel. The Hotel was located on the southeast corner of Charles and Chase Streets in Baltimore City, and lying immediately to the south of the Hotel on Charles Street there was an entrance to the appellees' parking lot. The Hotel required Mrs. Gray to enter the establishment through the employees' entrance located near the southeast corner of the building. When approaching the Hotel in a northerly direction on Charles Street, one could reach the employees' entrance by continuing north on Charles Street, turning right on Chase Street, and then turning right again on Lovegrove Street, a fifteen foot wide alley which bounded the Hotel on its east side. One could also reach the employees' entrance from Charles Street, however, in a considerably shorter period of time, by walking through the appellees' lot directly to the Hotel's southeast corner. On the night in question, Mrs. Gray unfortunately chose the shorter route, and while crossing the lot, slipped on a thin sheet of ice which caused her to fracture her left ankle.

Sentinel had executed a lease for the parking lot with the Hotel's owner, the Sheraton Hotel Corporation, on December 20, 1965, and from that time until the eventual demise of the Hotel, the appellees catered primarily to their landlord's patrons and employees. At the Charles Street entrance to the lot stood a sign reading 'Parking-Sheraton Belvedere.' Mrs. Gray testified that on numerous occasions when she rode to work in a friend's automobile, they would park in the lot and cross it to the employees' entrance, and that on other occasions, when she was relegated to riding a bus to work, she would depart from the bus at a stop south of the lot on Charles Street, walk up to the lot and cross through it. Although a stipulated exhibit containing the statement of the parking lot manager to the effect that, 'She (Mrs. Gray) did not park in the lot (and) as far as the lot is concerned, she is considered a trespasser,' was entered into the record by Mrs. Gray, nonetheless, she testified that the lot attendants never objected to her crossing the lot, even when she did not park there. Evidence was also presented in the court below to show that crossing the appellees' lot was the only safe method of reaching the employees' entrance, as Lovegrove Street had no sidwalks, was narrow and dimly lit, and was used by the parking lot attendants to move cars from one part of the lot to another.

Mrs. Gray filed her initial declaration and election of jury trial in the Superior Court of Baltimore City on May 8, 1967. The appellees' demurrer to the declaration, however, was sustained by Judge Sklar with leave to amend. The appellant amended its declaration to which the appellees again demurred. After a hearing, the second demurrer was overruled, this time by Judge Cardin who in his written opinion stated:

'For the purposes of this demurrer, the entire issue rests on a determination of whether the plaintiff should be considered an invitee or a licensee. * * *

'* * * It is the opinion of this Court that, at this stage of the proceeding, the plaintiff may, via custom and usage, be considered an invitee. * * *'

The case came to trial on its merits before a jury on June 7, 1971, at which time Judge Mace, in granting the appellees' motion for a directed verdict, stated:

'Well I think you have got a situation that is peculiar in several respects, and I certainly sympathize with Mrs. Gray, but I do not think I am in a position to go so far as to hold that she was an invitee in this case. * * *'

The appellant disputes the holding of Judge Mace and contends that either because of the general design of the Hotel complex or because of her customary use of the lot to reach the employees' entrance, she should be considered an invitee on the appellees' premises.

The standard of care owed by a property owner to an invitee was once again stated by this Court in the recent decision of Bramble v. Thompson, Md., 287 A.2d 265 (1972) as:

'* * * reasonable and ordinary care to keep his premises safe for the invitee and to protect the invitee from injury caused by an unreasonable risk which the invitee, by exercising ordinary care for his own safety, will not discover. * * *'

See also Lloyd v. Bowles, 260 Md. 568, 572, 273 A.2d 193 (1971); Gast, Inc. v. Kitchner, 247 Md. 677, 682, 234 A.2d 127 (1967); Honolulu Ltd. v. Cain, 244 Md. 590, 595, 224 A.2d 433 (1966); Morrison v. Suburban Trust Co., 213 Md. 64, 68, 69, 130 A.2d 915 (1957); Peregoy v. Western Maryland R. R. Co., 202 Md. 203, 207, 95 A.2d 867 (1953). For the reasons we will discuss in this opinion we do not agree with the appellant's contention that she was an invitee upon the appellee's property.

Mrs. Gray maintains that the Hotel complex was designed in such a fashion as to constitute both an express and an implied invitation to enter the Hotel by crossing the appellee's lot. Evidence of the fact that the parking lot was a functioning part of the Hotel complex is cited in the appellant's brief as:

'* * * The sign on it (the lot) read: 'Parking-Sheraton Belvedere'. It (the lot) was owned and leased by the Hotel to the Defendants (appellees) to be operated in conjunction with and provide a necessary part of the services of the overall Hotel complex. There was obvious mutual economic benefit between the Defendants and the Hotel, each depended on the operation of the other, as well as a percentage sharing of profits from the parking lot over certain amounts.'

Because of the close relationship between the Hotel and the parking lot, the appellant argues that a 'reasonable person' would believe that there existed an invitation to cross the lot, when entering the Hotel.

We first take up the appellant's contention that an express invitation existed for her to cross the parking lot. In this regard the appellant places much importance upon the fact that the parking lot sign stated 'Parking-Sheraton Belvedere' and that this connoted that the public as well as the employees of the Hotel had a right to cross the premises going to the Hotel.

The appellant, however, admits in her testimony that upon the occasions when a fellow employee drove her to work and they parked on the lot that she paid the parking fee. Thus, this knowledge and indeed the very wording of the sign would lead the reasonable pedestrian to assume that the opposite of an express invitation to use the lot existed; that is, that the use of the lot was prohibited without having first parked an automobile there.

We next consider the appellant's primary argument that an implied invitation had been extended to her to use the parking lot. In advancing this contention she relies upon Crown Cork and Seal Company v. Kane, 213 Md. 152, 131 A.2d 470 (1957), in which Judge Henderson, later Chief Judge, commented at some length on what he characterized as the more recent theory, namely, the implied invitation doctrine, as distinguished from the older theory, namely, the mutual benefit doctrine, under which concept, the courts endeavored to find some benefit to both the party who controlled the premises and the person on the premises, arising from the latter's use of it. The opinion states:

'* * * But there is another theory of liability for negligence that does not depend on mutual benefit at all. The cases all recognize that an invitation may be express or implied, and there are many cases in which an invitation has been implied from circumstances, such as custom, the acquiescence of the owner in habitual use, the apparent holding out of premises to a particular use by the public, or simply in the general arrangement or design of the premises.' 213 Md. at 159, 131 A.2d at 473.

After noting that the mutual benefit theory rests primarily upon...