Hueston v. Narragansett Tennis Club, Inc.
| Decision Date | 10 January 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-115-A,83-115-A |
| Parties | Carol H. HUESTON v. NARRAGANSETT TENNIS CLUB, INC. ppeal. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
The defendant, Narragansett Tennis Club, Inc., appeals from a judgment for the plaintiff, Carol Hueston, in the Superior Court. The jury found that the defendant had negligently failed to eliminate an unsafe condition on its premises that proximately caused the plaintiff's injury. We affirm.
Carol Hueston's complaint alleged that she had suffered a severe avulsion 1 of the little finger on her left hand while retrieving a tennis ball at the courts operated by Narragansett Tennis Club. The plaintiff claimed that she had sustained severe and permanent bodily injury, disfigurement, severe pain and suffering, mental anguish and embarrassment, as well as lost wages and medical expenses.
Testimony at trial established that defendant's indoor tennis courts were separated from one another by net curtains and were separated from the building's interior walls by an opaque curtain. The purpose of these curtains was to confine the tennis balls to the playing area. Horizontal and vertical girders supported the walls of the building, and foam insulation had been placed between the girders. Several witnesses testified that balls would, on occasion, travel over the curtains at the ends of the court, strike the nonresilient insulation, and drop straight down, sometimes lodging in the channel formed by the uppermost horizontal girder.
The structure and position of the horizontal girders are of particular importance to this case. John C. Alfano, a registered professional engineer, testified that the first horizontal girder was three feet and eight inches above the ground. The second girder was four feet and one-half inch above the first girder, or approximately seven feet and two inches above floor level. Each girder was U-shaped, forming a channel seven inches wide and two and one-half inches deep. The steel was approximately six-tenths of an inch thick. Additionally, a metal lip at the edge of the opening of the channel protruded inward three-quarters of an inch. Finally, the opening of the lower girder channel faced down, and the upper girder channel faced up. The tennis balls became trapped in this upper girder.
The plaintiff testified that on the date of her injury, she went behind the opaque curtain with a teammate to retrieve a ball that had lodged in the second horizontal girder. She explained that when this had happened in the past, she had retrieved the balls herself from the girder and had observed others, including some of the teaching professionals, doing the same. The plaintiff's injury occurred after her teammate boosted her up so that she could stand on the first girder. The plaintiff then reached up into the second girder channel, retrieved the ball, and tossed it to her teammate. She then, while still facing the girder, let go with her right hand and jumped back, being careful to clear the first girder. As she jumped, the ring that she was wearing on her left little finger caught on the girder lip, and the injury resulted.
Vincent R. Iacono, plaintiff's physician, testified that she had told him a slightly different version of the events preceding her injury. According to him, plaintiff stated that she was injured when she lost her balance, slipped, and grasped for the girder. The hospital record, which was received into evidence, stated that "while playing tennis she jumped up to get the ball on a ledge and caught fourth finger on ledge tonight."
David A. King, the tennis club's president, maintained that the club had a policy of replacing trapped balls, if requested. Several club members testified that they knew of no such policy, and Douglas Smith, the club vice-president, testified that no warning notice had ever been posted prohibiting climbing onto the first girder or stating that it was dangerous to do so. Alfano, the engineer, testified that blocks of wood could have been placed in the girder channel to prevent balls from accumulating there, at a cost of $180 per court.
The jury answered special interrogatories submitted to it, finding plaintiff 25 percent negligent and defendant 75 percent negligent and assessing damages at $100,000. Judgment was entered in the amount of $75,000, and the trial justice denied defendant's motion for a new trial.
The defendant contends that the trial justice erred in instructing the jury on the law. Specifically, defendant argues that the justice either incorrectly instructed or failed to instruct the jury regarding the doctrines of standard of care, foreseeability, proximate cause, and remote or intervening causes. The defendant also asserts that since plaintiff assumed the risk, the trial justice therefore improperly denied its motion for a directed verdict.
In charging the jury, the trial justice is obligated to avoid confusing or misleading instructions. Nelson v. Petrone, 118 R.I. 10, 371 A.2d 585 (1977). Challenged instructions must be evaluated as a whole in light of the meaning and interpretation that a jury composed of ordinary, intelligent lay persons would give them. Brimbau v. Ausdale Equipment Rental Corp., --- R.I. ---, 440 A.2d 1292 (1982). With this standard in mind, we shall examine each of defendant's assertions.
The defendant contends that plaintiff's actions must be measured by the "prudent person rule" and that the trial justice's references to a "reasonable, prudent tennis player" erected a specialized standard of care contrary to established Rhode Island law. In Lawton v. Vadenais, 84 R.I. 116, 121, 122 A.2d 138, 141 (1956) this court established that the "prudent person" rule is the standard by which conduct is to be measured in ascertaining whether due care has been exercised; that is, "[o]rdinary care is such care as a person of ordinary prudence exercises under the circumstances of the danger to be apprehended." Id. (quoting Leonard v. Bartle, 48 R.I. 101, 104, 135 A. 853, 854 (1927) ). Although the trial justice did make references to the "prudent tennis player," we believe that the prudent person rule was set forth with great specificity in the instruction: "When a person, acting in a given set of circumstances, fails to exercise that degree of care for the safety of another which a...
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