Kurczy v. St. Joseph Veterans Ass'n, Inc.

• Decision Date: 16 June 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-9-A,97-9-A
• Citation: 713 A.2d 766
• Parties: Mary M. KURCZY, Individually and as Parent and Next Friend of Lucas Landry, a Minor v. ST. JOSEPH VETERANS ASSOCIATION, INC. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 766

713 A.2d 766

Mary M. KURCZY, Individually and as Parent and Next Friend of Lucas Landry, a Minor v. ST. JOSEPH VETERANS ASSOCIATION, INC.

No. 97-9-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 16, 1998.

Ronald J. Resmini, Barrington, Paul S. Cantor, Providence, for Plaintiff.

Joseph C. Salvadore, for Defendant.

Before WEISBERGER, C.J., and LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS and GOLDBERG, JJ.

OPINION

BOURCIER, Justice.

This case came before the Court on the cross-appeals of the parties. The plaintiff, Mary M. Kurczy (Kurczy), ¹ appeals from the denial in the Superior Court of her motion for judgment as a matter of law and her motion for a new trial. The defendant, St. Joseph Veterans Association, Inc. (association), appeals from the Superior Court's denial, in part, of its motion for recovery of costs.

On May 19, 1990, Lucas Landry (Lucas), who was then eight years of age, attended his grandmother's wedding reception, which was being held at the association's facility in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Also attending that wedding was another young child, eight-year-old Kerri Hamelin (Kerri). During the course of the festivities, young Lucas and Kerri engaged in the usual children's play while their seniors reveled in the spirit of the occasion. At about ten in the evening Lucas and Kerri left the reception room and went out into the front yard of the building. Despite the night's darkness the building's front entrance was illuminated by an overhead light, and light from a window in the coatroom adjacent to the front entrance also helped to brighten the front-entrance area. Lucas and Kerri, once in the front-yard area, then began tapping on the coatroom window and, once having done so, attempted to conceal themselves in the darkness to avoid being seen by whoever of the guests inside the building might respond to their playful window tapping. After so playing, young Lucas went toward the south-side corner of the building. As he turned the corner of the building, he called to Kerri to "come on" and follow him. When Kerri turned the corner of the building, she was confronted by a slightly raised cement landing leading into a darkened steep concrete stairwell with a metal pipe railing. ² Lucas, however, was nowhere to be found. Kerri described the steep stairwell as "black as [her] hair." She then, while looking at the dark, unlit stairwell, was unable to see its bottom but heard what she recalled as a "sickly sound" like a "moaning dog" emanating from the bottom of the stairwell. When Lucas failed to respond to her calls, Kerri returned to the reception room where the rest of the wedding guests were still enjoying the festive occasion. Kerri ran to her mother and Lucas's mother, Kurczy, both sitting at the same table, and told them that she could not find Lucas. Both mothers assumed that Lucas was intentionally hiding and were not initially concerned about his disappearance. However, when Kerri was still not able to find Lucas after searching further, Lucas's aunt, Jacqueline Vitiello, along with Kurczy and Kerri's mother, joined in the search. A friend of Kurczy's, Jack Staelen (Staelen), also helped search for Lucas.

When Kurczy went outside, she went to the stairwell where Kerri had last seen Lucas. Staelen came over to her, and they both heard moaning from the bottom of the stairwell. Using his cigarette lighter to light his way as he went down the dark stairwell to investigate the source of the moaning sound, Staelen stumbled upon Lucas lying at the base of the stairwell, crumpled, bloodied, and covered with leaves and mud. At the sound of his name Lucas only produced nonresponsive moaning.

Staelen carried Lucas's limp body into the function-hall coatroom and placed him on a table. Staelen then turned his attention to Kurczy, who was understandably hysterical. An ambulance was summoned, and Lucas was taken to Rhode Island Hospital where he remained for eight days in a coma in the intensive-care unit. He next remained another two weeks in the hospital's recovery unit and then spent a third week at Landmark Medical Center ³ for rehabilitation. When he finally arrived home, his speech was somewhat slurred and he was no longer as physically active as he had been before the accident because of lingering weakness on the left side of his body.

On January 3, 1992, Kurczy filed a complaint, alleging damages arising from the association's negligent maintenance of its premises. ⁴ The association asserted in response that the concrete stairwell did not create a dangerous condition and that there was no evidence establishing the fact that the failure to warn of the stairwell or otherwise to remedy the allegedly dangerous condition was in any way the proximate cause of the injuries sustained by Lucas. After a jury trial the jury concluded in response to specific interrogatories that the unlighted stairwell did create a dangerous condition, that the association knew or should have known of its existence, and that the association was negligent in failing to remedy or adequately warn of the dangerous condition. Despite those findings, however, the jury then concluded that the association's negligence was not the proximate cause of Lucas's injuries and returned a verdict for the association. The trial justice thereafter denied Kurczy's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and her motion for a new trial. The trial justice also denied the association's motion for recovery of costs except for the costs associated with Lucas's and Kerri's depositions. Kurczy appealed the denial of her motion for judgment as a matter of law and the denial of her new trial motion. The association appealed the trial justice's denial of its request for costs of pretrial depositions.

Kurczy's first claim of error on appeal is that the trial justice erred in denying her motion for judgment as a matter of law. When ruling on Kurczy's motion for judgment as a matter of law made pursuant to Rule 50 of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, the trial justice explained that the language of the rule, as amended in 1995, prohibited the entry of judgment in favor of the party having the burden of proof on an issue, in this case the plaintiff, Kurczy. We conclude that the trial justice's interpretation of the new language of Rule 50 is erroneous. Rule 50(a), as amended, provides in pertinent part as follows:

"If during a trial by jury a party has been fully heard on an issue and there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for that party on that issue, the court may determine the issue against that party and may grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law against that party with respect to a claim or defense that cannot under the controlling law be maintained or defeated without a favorable finding on that issue."

There is no language in Rule 50 that limits the ability of a trial justice to enter judgment in favor of either party. All that the rule requires is that a party must be heard on an issue before the court makes a finding against that party. A trial justice can rule in favor of a plaintiff as easily as he or she can rule in favor of a defendant, as long as the party against whom the trial justice is ruling has had an opportunity to be heard on the issue. Since Kurczy's Rule 50 motion had been made initially at the close of the evidence and renewed after entry of the jury's verdict, both parties clearly had been afforded an opportunity to be heard on all the material trial issues, including negligence and proximate cause. Consequently, the trial justice was then free to rule against the association and in favor of Kurczy on those issues. Accordingly, we conclude that the trial justice misconstrued the language of Rule 50 and incorrectly assumed that she was without the authority to rule in favor of the plaintiff Kurczy on her motion for judgment as a matter of law.

However, notwithstanding that erroneous interpretation, the trial justice correctly examined the evidence and determined that she did not think "that the plaintiff's evidence on the issue of liability was or is so conclusive that the matter should be taken from the jury and judgment enter as a matter of law. * * * Whether the [plaintiff's] burden had been met or was met at trial was for the finder of fact, and is for the finder of fact. Reasonable minds could differ on the evidence."

The standard of review employed by a trial justice in passing upon a motion for judgment as a matter of law is the same as previously existed for the consideration of a motion for a directed verdict. K & K Construction, Inc. v. City of Warwick, 693 A.2d 1038, 1039 n. 4 (R.I.1997) (order). As we have said:

" 'The standard of review on a motion for a directed verdict is well settled: the trial justice, and this Court on review, considers the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, without weighing the evidence or evaluating the credibility of witnesses, and draws from the record all reasonable inferences that support the position of the nonmoving party. * * * If, after such a review, there remain factual issues upon which reasonable persons might draw different conclusions, the motion for a directed verdict must be denied, and the issues must be submitted to the jury for determination.' DeChristofaro v. Machala, 685 A.2d 258, 262 (R.I.1996)." A. Teixeira & Co. v. Teixeira, 699 A.2d 1383, 1390 n. 7 (R.I.1997).

The trial justice properly applied the above standard when she evaluated the facts in this case and correctly determined that the evidence introduced at trial presented issues of...