Hyde v. Blumenthal

• Citation: 110 A. 862,136 Md. 445
• Decision Date: 16 June 1920
• Docket Number: 14.
• Parties: HYDE v. BLUMENTHAL et al.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

110 A. 862

136 Md. 445

HYDE v. BLUMENTHAL et al.

No. 14.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 16, 1920

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas of Baltimore City; Robert F Stanton, Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Sydney C. Blumenthal and Alexander Kahn, copartners trading as the Blumenthal & Kahn Electric Company, for the use of the New Amsterdam Casualty Company, a body corporate for the use of William M. Moran against George W. Hyde. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. Reversed without new trial.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, THOMAS, PATTISON, URNER, and ADKINS, JJ.

George Ross Veazey and Vernon Cook, both of Baltimore, for appellant.

Charles F. Harley and George A. Solter, both of Baltimore (George C Thomas, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.

ADKINS J.

This is an appeal from a judgment for $7,500 in favor of an employer for the use of the insurer and for the use of an employé, who was injured while on the premises of a third party. It appears from the record that on the happening of the accident, Moran, the employé, applied for compensation to the State Accident Commission and was awarded $12 a week to be paid by the Blumenthal-Kahn Company, employer, and the New Amsterdam Casualty Company, insurer, and that, after receiving about $669 under this award, he thought he was able to work and signed a paper giving up his weekly allowance. This suit was subsequently entered against the appellant. The facts of the case are substantially as follows:

George W. Hyde, the appellant, in September, 1917, was the proprietor of lunch rooms at 322 and 324 North Howard street, in Baltimore City. On September 18, 1917, William M. Moran, an employé of the Blumenthal-Kahn Electric Company, the appellee herein, was sent by appellee to make some repairs to a motor in the kitchen of appellant, in the third story of appellant's building; appellee having been employed to do this work. The dining room fronts on the west side of Howard street, and the north half of the room extends back a distance of about 50 feet from the rear wall of the building on State street, and the southern half extends back to within about 10 or 12 feet from said rear wall. The pantry is located in the northwestern section of the first floor, in the ell formed by the two sections of the dining room, and is on the same level with the dining room. There is a public entrance to the dining room on the Howard street front. The rear entrance to the building on State street opens into a hallway which runs along the north wall of the building. This hallway is about 20 feet 6 inches long and about 4 or 5 feet wide. At the end of this hallway is an elevator. On the south side of the hall, at the distance of about 14 feet from the entrance, is a door from the hallway which leads down into the pantry by a stairway of five or six steps; the hallway being on a level 4 feet 6 inches higher than the level of the pantry floor. This door is about 3 feet wide, and the distance from the east side of the doorway to the elevator shaft is 3 feet 3 inches. On the right of these steps leading to the pantry floor is the wall constituting the back or west wall of the pantry. To the left there is no wall or railing; the stairway being an open one, and the steps being wholly within the pantry.

There is an entrance to the elevator from the pantry level. There is a spiral stairway in the pantry, about 10 feet east of the elevator shaft, and located along the northern wall of the pantry, and this spiral stairway leads from the pantry to the floors above, and is about 10 feet distant from the elevator shaft. The elevator shaft has doors opening outward on the pantry level. The doorway at the State street entrance takes up nearly the entire hall space. The main stairway to the lunch room on the second floor is in the front of the dining room, on the south side thereof, and there is a passenger elevator located near this stairway. There is no passageway on the same level from the foot of the spiral stairway in the pantry to State street. It is necessary to ascend the steps from the pantry to the hallway leading into State street in order to get out that way. State street is a narrow street or alley, from 15 to 17 feet wide.

When Moran came to work the first day, he entered the building through the front, or Howard street, entrance. According to his testimony, he arrived there at 9 or 10 o'clock in the morning, met a Mr. Sterling, whom he took to be the manager, and told him his business, showing him his slip. Sterling took him by the shoulder and led him back to the spiral staircase leading to the kitchen on the third floor. "When he got out by the hall leading to the spiral stairs," he let go his shoulder. Witness did not finish on September 18th. When he left the building that day, he came out the back way, through the pantry, up the steps to the hall, and through the hall to State street. As he went out, everything was safe and the door was open, "and I thought I could use the back way just as well as the front, and I went out the back way; everything looked safe when I went out there." When he returned the next morning about 7:45 to finish the work, he came in the same way he went out the day before. The doors were open as he walked through the hall. "I walked out this hall, and it is about 5 feet wide, and I walked right down this elevator shaft." He did not see any elevator shaft there the day before; when he came it was closed in. In answer to the question what, if any, protection was there to the shaft at that time, he replied:

"I could not have fallen if there was any protection there at all. There was none there at all, and there was a chain hanging down on both sides, half on each side of the door."

He further testified that he did not break the chain in the fall; that it was open when he went down; that the elevator doors, opening on the hall, were not closed, and there was no light there at all; that there was an old electric light...