Higgins v. County Seat Bldg. & Loan Ass'n

• Decision Date: 14 August 1939
• Docket Number: No. 4.,4.
• Citation: 123 N.J.L. 116,8 A.2d 101
• Parties: HIGGINS v. COUNTY SEAT BUILDING & LOAN ASS'N.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

8 A.2d 101

123 N.J.L. 116

HIGGINS

v. COUNTY SEAT BUILDING & LOAN ASS'N.

No. 4.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Aug. 14, 1939.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Middlesex County.

Action for damages resulting from fall on stairway by Sarah Higgins against County Seat Building & Loan Association. From a judgment for the plaintiff, the defendant appeals.

Affirmed.

Argued May term, 1939, before BROGAN, C. J., and DONGES and PORTER, JJ.

John C. Stockel, of Perth Amboy, for appellant.

Theodore Strong & Son, of New Brunswick (Stephen Van. Strong, of New Brunswick, of counsel), for appellee.

BROGAN, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas of Middlesex County. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff for personal injuries suffered by her and the defendant appeals from the judgment thereupon entered. The plaintiff alleges that she was an invitee on the occasion of her visit to the home of her son, who resided on the first floor of a two family house in the City of New Brunswick. When she arrived at the house on the night of October 21, 1937, the front entrance, having just been painted, was blocked off and to enter the house she was obliged to go to the rear entrance and that in going through that entrance, which was unlighted, she fell down the steps leading to the cellar. The defendant is charged with negligence in that the said rear entrance was improperly constructed and maintained, was unlighted, and that the platform immediately inside the house was insufficient in depth for the safety of those who had occasion to use it, and that the said entrance and platform were inadequate and unsafe.

It is not disputed but that the rear entrance afforded ingress and egress for tenants that occupied the first and second floors of this house and that the stairway in question was a common one. From the record it appears that the door of the rear entrance opened inward from left to right. The inside platform had a depth of 2'6". Inside, a partition divided the staircase leading upward to the first floor from another flight of steps that led downward to the cellar. If one opened the door only to an angle of forty degrees, such person entering and standing, let us say, at the end of the open door, would be 16 inches or less from the steps leading to the cellar. On the other hand, if the door had been opened to its fullest extent, the door would then stand at an angle of ninety degrees and such person would have a platform of the full depth of 2 1/2 feet on which to stand before mounting the steps leading to the first floor apartment.

The plaintiff said that she opened the door wide enough to gain entrance, turned about to close it after her, and in so doing stepped back, unquestionably to the left of the partition, with the result that she fell down the cellar steps.

It is first urged that the court committed error in rejecting the defendant's motion for nonsuit and the argument is that there was no proof that the rear entrance was improperly constructed or maintained. We think that the testimony of the witnesses, Merchant, an architect, and Pisciotti, a builder, were sufficient to make this issue a fact question. These witnesses, particularly the latter, said that the platform was not of sufficient depth for safety under conditions there existing; that the usual amount of clearance was not present for the closing of the door. It is true that there was an objection by the defendant to the question which elicited this information, when it was asked of both these witnesses by counsel for the plaintiff. In the first instance, the...