Hauer v. Cuschner

• Decision Date: 14 July 1923
• Docket Number: 17210.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: HAUER v. CUSCHNER et al.

216 P. 833

125 Wash. 555

HAUER v. CUSCHNER et al.

No. 17210.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

July 14, 1923

Appeal from Superior Court, Spokane County; Hugo E. Oswald, Judge.

Action by Frank Hauer against I. M. Cuschner, doing business as the Standard Furniture Company, and others. From judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Graves Kizer & Graves, of Spokane, for appellants.

McCarthy Edge & Lantz, of Spokane, for respondent.

BRIDGES, J.

This was a personal injury action, and the defendant has appealed from a judgment against him. The respondent was injured by falling through a freight elevator shaft, located in a building in Spokane, used by the appellant in connection with his general furniture store. Inasmuch as the respondent claims to have had his fall because the elevator was unguarded by gates or doors and because the place was insufficiently lighted, it will be necessary for us to undertake to give a description of the place: The furniture store extended from Sprague avenue on the south to Riverside avenue on the north, and had an entrance from each street. The entrances, however, were not on the same level, and we are interested only in that from Sprague avenue. The room in which the business was done was approximately 36 feet in width along Sprague avenue. Its depth is not shown exactly but was materially more than its width. There was a wooden partition running north and south through a part of the room and located near the center thereof. That portion of the room east of the partition forms the sales department, and for the most part that portion which is on the west side of the partition serves the shipping department. The freight elevator was in this portion of the room. Close to the west wall on the Sprague avenue, or south, side of the room is an entrance at which are two doors which have large glasses in them, and are always kept closed and can only be opened from the inside. They open into a hall which is some 10 feet in length. At the other, or north, end of the hall are two other wooden doors without glass and they open on to the south side of the elevator shaft. On the north side of the shaft and immediately adjoining it are two swinging doors or gates, one hinging upon the other. The purpose of these gates was to protect persons from falling into the shaft. The hall above mentioned and the elevator shaft are inclosed on the westerly side by the west wall of the building and on the easterly side by a high wooden partition. Immediately adjoining and to the east of the entrance we have described are large plate glass windows and the main entrance into the salesroom.

The respondent first commenced to work for the appellant the day before his injury. Before that occurrence he had been on the various floors of the place and had been through the various doors leading to the freight elevator and had once or twice been on the elevator, but had not himself operated it somebody always doing that for him. His employment was to operate a truck delivering furniture and other articles. On the morning of the day of his injury he had taken some matting or other floor covering from the building and had delivered the major portion of it to some place in the city and had returned to the store with what had not been used. He stopped his truck at the west, or elevator, entrance. He knew that the doors of this entrance were closed and could only be opened from the inside and could be reached only by going into the main entrance and thus through a part of the main store and then into the shipping room and around the wooden partition to the north entrance of the elevator, across the elevator and the hall to the south of it to the front door. He undertook to follow this course and fell into the shaft at the north entrance thereof.

Respondent and some of his witnesses testified that the day was cloudy and somewhat dark; that the wooden doors guarding the south entrance to the elevator were closed, or substantially so; that no artificial lights were burning and that the shipping room and the approach to the elevator were dark; and that one could not readily tell whether the elevator was on the first floor or was higher up in the building, thus leaving the shaft open and exposed. He further introduced evidence to the effect that the doors or gates guarding the north entrance to the elevator shaft, the one which on this particular occasion he was attempting to enter, were open and would not automatically close, although he did not know those facts. In describing how he entered the room from the outside and sought for the elevator, he said:

'Well, I walked down from the corner there and started to grope with my feet and hands

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