Manar v. Taetz
| Decision Date | 02 November 1937 |
| Docket Number | No. 23837.,23837. |
| Citation | 109 S.W.2d 721 |
| Parties | MANAR v. TAETZ et al. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; James M. Douglas, Judge.
"Not to be published in State Reports."
Action by Louis J. Manar against Joseph Taetz and another. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
Earl M. Pirkey, of St. Louis, for appellant.
Oscar J. Moberg and Amandus Brackman, both of St. Louis, for respondents.
BENNICK, Commissioner.
This case, which comes to the writer on reassignment, is an action for damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by plaintiff on November 8, 1933, when he fell down a flight of steps leading out into the yard from the rear of certain premises in which he resided at 2838 Ohio avenue in the city of St. Louis.
The premises in question, which were owned by defendants, consisted of a three-story building designed for occupancy by five families, with living quarters provided for two families on each of the first and second floors, and for one family on the third floor. Plaintiff occupied quarters on the second floor, to reach which, in coming into the building off of the street, it was necessary for him to go back through a common hallway to the rear of the building, and thence up a common stairway located in the middle of the hallway and leading up to the second floor.
It appears, incidentally, that the rear end of the hallway, which was approximately nine and a half feet in width, was wholly unenclosed, and at this point, that is, at the extreme rear of the hallway, a flight of three steps extended for the full width of the hallway down into the rear yard, the surface of which was two and a half feet below the level of the first floor. There was no dispute about the fact that the rear yard and the steps leading down into it had likewise been reserved for the common use of all the tenants.
About 8:30 o'clock on the evening in question plaintiff entered the building off of the street and walked back to the rear of the hallway with the intention of going out into the yard before going up to his quarters on the second floor. According to his testimony it was "pitch dark" in the hallway, and it was a conceded fact that no light had been provided by defendants for the purpose of lighting up the hallway and stairways at such times as artificial light was required. As he came to the end of the hallway, plaintiff attempted to feel for the location of the upper one of the steps leading down into the yard, but in so doing lost his footing and fell forward, missing the steps altogether, and landing upon the paved surface of the yard, whereby he received the injuries for which he has sought to be compensated in this action.
The negligence pleaded and relied upon by plaintiff was defendants' nonobservance of a certain ordinance of the city of St. Louis , which requires that "in every tenement house of two or more stories, a proper safely-placed light, unobstructed by any colored glass or other obstruction, shall be provided and kept by the owner, trustee, or lessee in the common hallways, so as to light up such halls and stairways, every night from sunset to sunrise throughout the year."
A further charge of negligence based upon the fact that defendants had failed to guard the steps in question was abandoned by plaintiff in the submission of his case to the jury.
The answer of defendants was a general denial, coupled with a plea of contributory negligence to the effect that plaintiff, by the exercise of ordinary care, could have seen the steps leading down from the first floor into the yard, but carelessly and negligently failed to look down at the steps and to look where and how he stepped thereon while using the same.
Tried and submitted upon the issues thus joined, a verdict was returned in favor of defendants. Judgment was rendered accordingly, and plaintiff's appeal to this court has followed in the usual course.
At the outset of the case defendants argue that all question of error committed against plaintiff is immaterial for the reason that he was not entitled to go to the jury in the first instance. Their point is that the ordinance in question, when taken for what it says upon its face, does not require the lighting of such stairways as the rear steps down which plaintiff fell, and that consequently their own nonobservance of the ordinance gave rise to no cause of action on plaintiff's part, notwithstanding the fact that under his evidence it was the absence of light in the hallway and over the steps which was the direct and proximate cause of his fall.
The ordinance is undoubtedly so worded as to exclude its application to any stairway not associated or connected with a hallway, but it is to be remembered that in this case the flight of steps led directly down from the hallway, with...
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