Marwedel v. Cook

• Decision Date: 29 June 1891
• Citation: 154 Mass. 235,28 N.E. 140
• Parties: MARWEDEL v. COOK et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

154 Mass. 235

28 N.E. 140

MARWEDEL v. COOK et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

June 29, 1891

Exceptions from superior court, Suffolk county ROBERT C. PITMAN, Judge.

It was not contributory negligence for plaintiff to use a stairway in a building rented for offices, though she knew it to be dark, and was cautioned to use care, when the elevator had stopped running, and there was no other way of getting out of the building.

COUNSEL

H.N Sheldon, for plaintiff.

L.L Dabney and Horace G. Allen, for defendants.

OPINION

W. ALLEN, J. ^[1]

The defendants let offices in their buildings, retaining control of the halls, entries, stairways, and elevators, which were not let. The plaintiff, while going down the stairs from an office in the building, fell and was hurt. There was evidence tending to prove that she fell in consequence of the darkness of the stairway. There was no evidence of negligence of the defendants except in not lighting the stairway, and, if they owed to the plaintiff the duty of lighting it, there was evidence of negligence on their part. The general duty which the defendant owed to third persons in respect to the passages of the building is well expressed in the instructions to the jury at the trial: "That if the defendants leased rooms in the building to different tenants reserving to themselves the control of the halls, stairways, and elevator, by and through which access was had to these rooms, and the general lighting arrangements of those passages, then the defendants were bound to take reasonable care that such approaches were safe and suitable at all times, and for all persons who were lawfully using the premises, and using due care, so far as they ought to have reasonably anticipated such use as involved in and necessarily arising out of the purposes and business for which said rooms were leased." The plaintiff was using the stairs by the implied invitation of the defendants; and the question of the defendants' negligence turns upon whether it was their duty, to persons so using them, to provide artificial light at the time the plaintiff fell. The stairs were constructed in a well, three sides of which were closed. At the back of the well, which was about nine feet from the entrance, or open side, the stairs turned, and passed down on the third side of the well to the front or open side. The turn was made by six stairs, called "winders," which were nearly triangular in form, being about four inches wide on the inside, where the hand-railing was, and about two feet wide at the other end, against the wall, where there was no rail. There was no sky-light to the well, but it received natural light indirectly from a sky-light in the elevator well, which was by the side of the stairway, and through glass in the doors of offices. Provision was made for artificial light. The jury may well have found, upon the...