Kitchen v. Women's City Club of Boston

• Decision Date: 29 May 1929
• Citation: 166 N.E. 554,267 Mass. 229
• Parties: KITCHEN v. WOMEN'S CITY CLUB OF BOSTON (two cases).
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

267 Mass. 229

166 N.E. 554

KITCHEN

v.WOMEN'S CITY CLUB OF BOSTON (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

May 29, 1929.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Whiting, Judge.

Actions by Emma N. Kitchen and by Frank Birdsall Kitchen against the Women's City Club of Boston. Verdict for defendant, and plaintiffs bring exceptions. Exceptions overruled.

L. R. Chamberlin and R. J. Cook, both of Boston, for plaintiffs.

K. C. Parker, of Boston, for defendant.

PIERCE, J.

These are two actions of tort, one brought by Emma N. Kitchen for personal injuries sustained by her and the other brought by her husband for consequential damages. The cases were tried to a jury. All the material evidence on the question of liability is contained in the bill of exceptions. At the close of the evidence the defendant filed a motion for a directed verdict in each case. These motions were allowed and the jury were directed to return verdicts for the defendant. The cases are before us on the exceptions of the plaintiffs to this direction and to the exclusion of certain offered testimony. The parties to the actions use the word plaintiff to designate the female plaintiff, and that word will be so used herein.

The pertinent facts are as follows: The defendant is an incorporated club organized ‘for the purpose of establishing broad acquaintance among women through their common interest in the promotion of the welfare of the city of Boston and the Commonwealth, to provide a clubhouse where its members may meet informally, and to provide an open forum where leaders in matters of public import and civic interest may be frequently heard.’ It maintained a clubhouse on Walnut Street, Boston, Massachusetts. The plaintiff with three other women, travelling in an automobile, arrived in Boston, and by prearrangement were received as guests at the defendant's clubhouse on Friday afternoon July 17, 1925. They had their evening meal at the club restaurant and were assigned a room on the second floor. The plaintiff occupied this room with her sister on Friday night, and again on Saturday night with her niece. The plaintiff paid for her room at the rate of approximately $3 per day. In this room there was a toilet table, a writing desk, two single beds and two or three chairs. The floor was of hard wood highly polished, and the ‘slipperiest floor’ the plaintiff had ever seen. It was more slippery than is common with other floors. Its surface had been treated with shellac, and waxed once or twice a year; the last time it was polished was a matter of months before the accident. The room was dusted on Saturday,July 18, 1925, by a maid in the employ of the defendant. At the foot of the beds, between the toilet table and the door, there was a ‘thread and thrum’ rug, of woolen fibre, medium in thickness about three and one-half by five feet, without any device or means to prevent it slipping. When the plaintiff went into the room assigned to her use she observed that the floor was highly polished and slippery, and that the rug was very thin and slipped on the floor easily. When she walked by the foot of the beds she had to walk over the rug, so that every time she walked from one side of the room to the other she walked in the space where the rug was. While she knew it was slippery, the ‘slipperiest floor’ she ever...