Hudson v. Church of the Holy Trinity

• Decision Date: 03 May 1929
• Citation: 166 N.E. 306,250 N.Y. 513
• Parties: HUDSON et al. v. CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

250 N.Y. 513

166 N.E. 306

HUDSON et al.

v.CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 3, 1929.

Action by Louisa F. Hudson and husband against the Church of the Holy Trinity. A judgment of the Trial Term on the verdict of a jury for plaintiffs was affirmed by the Appellate Division (225 App. Div. 758, 232 N. Y. S. 774), and defendant appeals.

Judgments reversed, and complaint dismissed.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second department.

Clarence S. Zipp and E. E. Sherwood, both of New York City, for appellant.

James M. Fawcett, of Brooklyn, for respondents.

POUND, J.

Defendant, a religious corporation, maintains premises on Pierrepont street in Brooklyn, where sewing is given out to women who call for it. If the material is returned the women are paid for their sewing. If it is kept they pay for it. The completed work is sent to the hospitals and other places. Plaintiff, Louisa F. Hudson, came to the premises on January 9, 1925, to pay for some material she had from the week before and to get some more. She asked ‘some one,’ wholly unidentified, where the ladies' toilet was and was told to go downstairs. ‘Just around the corner there is a door and you go in.’ She testified: ‘I went down and everything was in perfect darkness. I did not open the door but I pushed it and I went in and went down.’ She felt her way through the darkness to the end of the hall, pushed open the cellar door, and fell downstairs, sustaining injuries. There were two or three doors along the hall, one of which opened into the ladies' toilet. She has obtained a judgment for damages, and her husband, plaintiff Herbert F. Hudson, has recovered a judgment for expenses and loss of services.

Assuming that the injured woman had permission from the defendant to go into the basement to make use of the toilet for her own convenience, in connection with the business which brought her to the premises, her status was that of an invitee. Vaughan v. Transit Development Co., 222 N. Y. 79, 118 N. E. 219. As such the defendant owed her a duty of reasonable care. While it was subject to no statutory duty to light the hall, it should refrain from directing the women who came to its premises to transact business with it into an unlighted hallway to find a toilet room in the dark, without instructing them as to the danger.

Plaintiff's duty in the circumstances was to look out for herself and not to feel her way where it was ‘so black and dark that she...