Marentette v. Luechtefeld

• Decision Date: 18 May 1954
• Docket Number: No. 28869,28869
• Citation: Marentette v. Luechtefeld, 268 S.W.2d 44 (Mo. App. 1954)
• Parties: MARENTETTE v. LUECHTEFELD et al.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 44

268 S.W.2d 44

MARENTETTE v.LUECHTEFELD et al.

No. 28869.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

May 18, 1954.

Rehearing Denied June 11, 1954.

N. Murry Edwards, and Ninian M. Edwards, Jr., St. Louis, for appellants.

Marvin Q. Silver, and John W. Barry, St. Louis, for respondent.

BENNICK, Judge.

This is an action for damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff, Barbara Marentette, who was five years of age at the time of the accident in February, 1948, and who prosecutes her action through Charles Marentette, her father and next friend.

The Marentette family were tenants in a three-story apartment building located at 5906 Horton Place in the City of St. Louis.The building contained a total of twelve individual apartments, the one occupied by the Marentettes being on the second floor.

The defendants are Victor H. Luechtefeld, Eric J. Luechtefeld, and Oscar J. Luechtefeld, who were the Marentettes' landlords at the time of the accident.

The underlying legal question in the case is one of a landlord's liability to a member of his tenant's family for injuries attributable to the alleged dangerous and defective condition of a refrigeration gas line under the landlord's control.

Upon a trial to a jury, a verdict was returned in favor of plaintiff, and against defendants, for the sum of $1,100.Following an unavailing motion for a new trial, defendants gave notice of appeal, and by proper successive steps have caused the case to be transferred to this court for our review.

The Marentettes had been occupying the apartment for some seven or eight years at the time of the accident which has given rise to this proceeding.

When they first moved into the apartment their refrigeration was provided by a box which the then owner had installed in the kitchen of their apartment, and which was supplied with refrigerating gas from a central unit located in the basement.The type of refrigeration was the same in all twelve apartments; and the central unit in the basement together with the pipes supplying the boxes in the individual apartments were retained under the owner's exclusive control.

The box installed in the apartment proved to be unserviceable, and within a month or so after the inception of the Marentettes' tenancy it was removed by the owner at their request.

The gas which had supplied the box had been brought up from the central unit in the basement through a two-inch copper pipe which ran from the basement through the first floor apartment underneath the one occupied by the Marentettes, and then through their own apartment and from there to the corresponding apartment on the third floor immediately overhead.The pipe constituted a main refrigeration line, and the boxes in all three apartments through which it ran were connected with it by extensions running out to the respective boxes.In the Marentettes' apartment the main pipe entered through the floor some two to two and a half inches out from the wall; and at a point of separation 24 to 30 inches above the floor the extension of curled pipe for attachment to their box jutted out for a distance of 12 to 14 inches.

When the original box was taken out of the Marentettes' apartment, the extension of curled pipe was not removed but was pinched together with an instrument of some sort so as to seal it in that manner against the escape of gas which still flowed through the main line to the apartment overhead.

Incidentally, the defendants in this action did not become the owners of the building until quite some time after the original box had been removed, so that their liability, if any, must rest upon a somewhat different basis than that upon which the owner who removed the box might conceivably have been held if he had retained his status as landlord until the time of the accident.

After the original box was removed the Marentettes installed a box of their own at the same location in the kitchen.However this box did not operate from the central unit in the basement, but instead was of a type that had its own unit and was plugged into an electrical outlet in the wall.Although it was not attached to or served by the pipe that went upward through the apartment, it did conceal the extension that had been pinched together and then left protruding out into room.A year or so later the Marentettes purchased an entirely new box which they placed against the wall on the opposite side of the kitchen, leaving the pipe and extension fully exposed.

On the occasion in question the family had sat down to eat their evening meal at a kitchen table which had been pulled out from against the wall to a position on the floor close by the spot where the original box had stood.Each member of the family had taken his or her accustomed seat at the table, that of Barbara, the plaintiff, being directly in front of the extension, which was pointed towards her back.Suddenly there was a spurt of gas or vapor which sprayed across Barbara's back and shoulders, and which could be seen emerging from a crack which had opened up in the extension at the point where it had been pinched together when the first box had been disconnected.While defendants made some unavailing inquiry as to whether the break might have been caused by Barbara pushing her chair against the extension, the only real explanation suggested by the record is that it was due to deterioration which had taken place in the metal over a lengthy period of time.

Although the Marentettes had observed no leakage from the extension before the happening of the accident, they had nevertheless been apprehensive over the fact that it was still connected with the main line through which gas was constantly flowing, and had...