Knopp v. Kemp & Hebert

• Decision Date: 04 January 1938
• Docket Number: 26728.
• Citation: 193 Wash. 160,74 P.2d 924
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: KNOPP et al. v. KEMP & HEBERT.

74 P.2d 924

193 Wash. 160

KNOPP et al. v. KEMP & HEBERT.

No. 26728.

Supreme Court of Washington

January 4, 1938

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, Spokane County; William A. Huneke Judge.

Action by Eleanor Knopp and F. P. Knopp, her husband, against Kemp &amp Hebert.From a judgment on a directed verdict for defendantplaintiffs appeal.

Affirmed.

Dillard & Powell, of Spokane, for appellants.

Post Russell, Davis & Paine, of Spokane, for respondent.

ROBINSON Justice.

The respondent, Kemp & Hebert, a corporation, has for many years operated a department store in Spokane, known as the Palace, occupying and controlling the entire building situated at the northeast corner of Post street and Main avenue.The entrance door of the store on the Main avenue side is set back from the sidewalk about fifteen feet, and the strip of floor between the front wall of the store and the sidewalk is used as an arcade for the display of goods in glass inclosed areas, so arranged as to leave three open passages for entrance to the arcade area and the entrance door.The floor of the arcade is terrazzo, a composition mainly of cement and marble chips.It slopes slightly from the entrance door to the sidewalk, but so slightly that we think that fact of little or no importance.The sidewalk in front of the store is of the ordinary, familiar cement mixture.Along the inside of the sidewalk where it joins the terrazzo, rows of small blocks of glass about two inches square are set in the cement, a type of construction with which everyone is familiar.

On the afternoon of February 18, 1936, as the evidence shows, Eleanor Knopp, a woman then sixty-nine years of age, had been at the Kress store just east of the Palace with her sister and another woman.They left there to go to the Palace.It had been snowing, and perhaps, thawing.At any event, there is evidence that the sidewalk in front of the store was wet and some of the slush or water had slopped over on the terrazzo floor where it joined the cement sidewalk.As Mrs. Knopp stepped on the terraza, she slipped and fell on her right side, seriously injuring her upper right arm and her right shoulder.

It is alleged that the terrazzo floor is very smooth and becomes exceedingly slippery when wet, is dark in color, and, when wet and tracked over by people entering the store, becomes so similar in appearance to the cement sidewalk that the ordinary person entering the arcade would not observe that he was passing from one type of floor to another, and for this reason the place presented a pitfall or trap to persons using the entrance in the manner for which it was designed and intended.

Mrs. Knopp testified that she was wearing rubber galoshes at the time; that the muddy water from the sidewalk had been tracked in toward the door so that the cement of the sidewalk and the terrazzo looked all the same color.She had often been in and out of the Palace and was familiar with the general layout of the arcade and entrances, although she could not say whether or not she ever Before passed over the exact areas where she fell.

Mr. Rasque, an architect who has supervised the construction of many public buildings, perhaps a hundred or more, including most of the state buildings in Eastern Washington, testified that he had examined the floor where the accident happened and several other floors, and this was more slippery than any of the others.That portion of his evidence which is chiefly relied upon is as follows:

'That floor in there is made of terraza.It is called a terraza floor, and is made up of Portland cement and marble chips, but has an exceedingly smooth surface.

'This floor has an exceptionally smooth surface and would be suitable for inside floors, I would say, in my opinion it is too smooth a surface to be used for ramps or too smooth to be used for ramps or outside terrazzo work.According to good practice for designing or constructing all terrazzo floors for exterior, we add an anti-slip mixture to the terrazzo.And for floors of this type it required an added mixture of this anti-slip material or abrasive such as carborundum or alundum in the proportions of about two hundred pounds of this material to three hundred pounds of marble chips.'

Mr. Rasque further testified that he examined the floor by looking at it, feeling of it, and rubbing his feet over it, but that he had made no analysis to determine the proportion of abrasive material in its construction; that the adjoining sidewalk was of a float finish cement, not very slippery; and that, although the glass insets would be slippery when wet, the intervening strips of cement between the glass blocks would tend to prevent slipping.

When the plaintiff rested, the defendant moved for a directed verdict, or in the alternative, for nonsuit.A directed verdict was returned, and from the judgment entered thereon this appeal was taken.

The law requires a storekeeper to maintain his storeroom and the...