Hanson v. Econ. Cunningham Drug Stores, Inc.

• Citation: 299 Mich. 434,300 N.W. 153
• Decision Date: 06 October 1941
• Docket Number: No. 81.,81.
• Parties: HANSON v. ECONOMICAL CUNNINGHAM DRUG STORES, Inc.
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan

299 Mich. 434

300 N.W. 153

HANSON

v.ECONOMICAL CUNNINGHAM DRUG STORES, Inc.

No. 81.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Oct. 6, 1941.

Action for injuries by Elsie A. Hanson against the Economical Cunningham Drug Stores, Inc., a Michigan corporation, also known as the Cunningham Drug Stores, Inc. From a judgment for the plaintiff rendered by trial judge sitting without a jury, defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Washtenaw County; George W. sample, judge.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

Lightner, Crawford, Sweeny, Dodd & Mayer, of Detroit, for appellant.

Burke & Burke, of Ann Arbor, for appellee.

BUSHNELL, Justice.

Defendant appeals from a judgment entered upon a verdict for plaintiff in the sum of $2,750 rendered by the trial judge sitting without a jury.

Plaintiff is a married woman forty-two years of age and at the time of the accident was employed in the ready to wear department of Mack's Incorporated in the city of Ann Arbor earning eighteen dollars a week. On July 8, 1939, she went into defendant's store in Ann Arbor and while sitting in a booth eating her lunch she was injured by plaster which fell from defendant's ceiling. She had been in good health for seventeen years, but after the accident she had pains in her neck and head and she experienced a weakness of the muscle supporting the upper lid of her left eye. At the time of trial she was still in a nervous condition and complained of headaches and dizziness.

Plaintiff produced as a witness a mason and plasterer of more than forty years' experience who had in 1936 repaired the ceiling in defendant's store at a point some 55 or 60 feet from where the plaster fell in 1939. This witness testified that he had to do considerably more work than he expected because other plaster kept falling while he was at work and that the ceiling appeared to be loose and badly cracked in spots. He admitted that he had examined only the small area upon which he had worked and not the entire ceiling. The patch he made was about five feet in diameter. He claimed that at that time he informed some person in charge of defendant's store that the whole ceiling was bad.

Defendant produced testimony showing that the entire ceiling and the walls of its store had been redecorated about one or two months before the accident. The decorator who was in charge of this work testified that he found the ceiling in good condition and the plasterer who repaired the ceiling after the accident with a patch about three feet in diameter said that the surrounding plaster which he looked at was sound and in good condition.

There is also testimony in the record from which it might be inferred that the falling plaster was caused by blows coming from some construction work being done on the second floor and for which some third person was responsible. Defendant's manager, assistant manager, and a distinterested witness testified to a loud knock or thump overhead just before the plaster fell. Plaintiff's witnesses denied hearing any sounds before the plaster fell.

Appellant argues that plaintiff's claim that defendant was negligent is not supported by a preponderance of the evidence and that the proofs are equally susceptible of...