Mercy Regional Medical Center v. Doiron, 49210

• Decision Date: 06 July 1977
• Docket Number: No. 49210,49210
• Citation: 348 So.2d 243
• Parties: MERCY REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER v. Camille C. DOIRON.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 243

348 So.2d 243

MERCY REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER v. Camille C. DOIRON.

No. 49210.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

July 6, 1977.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 3, 1977.

Ramsey, Bodron, Thames & Robinson, Lee Davis Thames, Vicksburg, for appellant.

Teller, Biedenharn & Rogers, Landman Teller, Jr., Vicksburg, for appellee.

Before INZER, P. J., and SUGG and LEE, JJ.

SUGG, Justice, for the Court.

This is a negligence case from the Circuit Court of Warren County. Mrs. Camille C. Doiron was awarded $25,000 damages as a result of injuries sustained when she fell on a stairway situated on the property of defendant, Mercy Regional Medical Center. The question presented in this case is: Did the Hospital's failure to provide a handrail on steps to a parking lot constitute a breach of its duty to use ordinary care in keeping its premises in a reasonably safe condition?

Plaintiff enrolled in the School of Nursing at Mercy Regional Medical Center in August, 1972. During orientation the hospital officials explained to the students that they would be required to park in the lower parking lot located across the street from the Hospital down a grassy hill. Concrete steps lead from the lower parking lot up the hill to the street adjacent to the Hospital. There are thirty steps, four feet wide, with gutters on both sides leading from the lower parking lot to the street. The steps were constructed of concrete with a five and one-half inch riser and a twelve inch tread. No complaint is made about the width of the tread, or the height of the riser, but the negligence charged is that the defendant failed to provide a handrail to be used by persons ascending and descending the steps.

On the afternoon of December 13, 1972 plaintiff, accompanied by a fellow student, was descending the steps leading to the lower parking area. Approximately half-way down the steps plaintiff lost her balance for no apparent reason, unsuccessfully attempted to grab for something to enable her to regain her balance, and fell to the ground on the right side of the steps. There was no debris on the steps, the steps were not wet or slippery and the condition of the steps did not cause her to lose her balance. Her sole charge of negligence was the absence of a handrail on the steps. She testified that had there been a handrail she would not have fallen.

Defendant requested a peremptory instruction which was refused and, following the verdict of the jury, filed a motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. In Paymaster Oil Mill Co. v. Mitchell, 319 So.2d 652 (Miss.1975) we held that the evidence considered on a request for a judgment n. o. v. embraces the testimony on behalf of plaintiff as well as that of the defendant, there being no difference between that considered for a peremptory instruction and a judgment n. o. v. because the latter is entertained only to correct the court's error in refusing a requested peremptory instruction.

We further stated in Paymaster that the jury resolves conflicts of fact while the court resolves issues of law arising from non-conflicting facts. There was no conflict in the evidence so the issue of negligence was for the court.

City of Greenville v. Laury, 172 Miss. 118, 159 So. 121 (1935) was cited with approval in Supreme Instruments Corp. v. Lehr, 190 Miss. 600, 199 So. 294, Sugg. of Error Sustained, 1 So.2d 242 (1941). In Laury, we held:

In an action at law based on negligence, the question of negligence vel non is for the determination of the jury, unless the doing of the act which caused the injury complained of is not in dispute or conclusively appears from the evidence, and no inference except that of negligence or of no negligence can be justly drawn therefrom, in which event the question is for the determination of the trial judge. Whitney v. Cook, 53 Miss. 551; McCaughn v. Young, 85 Miss. 277, 37 So. 839; Farmer v. Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Co., 86 Miss. 55, 38 So. 755. (172 Miss. at 122; 159 So. at 122).

In Supreme Instruments, supra, we held:

Requisite care remains always that degree of care commensurate with appreciable danger appraised in terms of ordinary prudence and interpreted in the light of the attendant circumstances. Application of this principle leads to results which give play to such varying factors as time, place, and purpose. Although the expression and the basis of the rule remain fixed, its flexibility permits accommodation to each particular case. The area of factual doubt within which juries should be allowed to function is circumscribed within a circle of which care is the axis and reasonableness the radius. Within this area reasonableness is to be adjudged by reasonable men, and their right to differ is commensurate with their duty to consult. Beyond this limit lies the field of substantive law. Here are found those issues as to which reasonable men should not be in disagreement. It is here that 'the court is not called upon to decide the issue of fact one way or the other, but it is called upon to decide whether there is an issue of fact under the law to go to the jury.' City of Hazlehurst v. Matthews, 180 Miss. 42, 176 So. 384, 385. As was said by Cardozo, J., in People v. Galbo, 218 N.Y. 283, 112 N.E. 1041, 1045, 2 A.L.R. 1220, 'insufficient evidence is . . . no evidence.' Absence of a handrail under the circumstances cannot be held to be negligence, much less a contributing proximate cause of the injury. Any defect, therefore, was not in the step but in the stepping. No negligence may be predicated upon the construction or maintenance of the step in question. (Emphasis Supplied) (190 Miss. at 627, 1 So.2d at 245).

In Supreme Instruments, the case was first affirmed by this Court which divided three three on the question of affirmance. On suggestion of error the case was reversed and judgment rendered for the appellant who was the defendant in the trial court. In a dissenting opinion when the case was originally before the court, Justice Griffith stated:

Inasmuch, then, as all the facts respecting the condition of the steps were undisputed and every feature of common knowledge or common experience which the jury could apply belonged also to the judge, what was there to submit to the jury as regards the condition of the steps, except to allow them to alter or amend the law of the land under the guise of a finding of facts? We have repeatedly said, as for instance in Dow v. Town of D'Lo, 169 Miss. 240, 247, 152 So. 474, 475, that "it is not permissible, by the device and under the guise of a finding of facts by a jury, that the law of the land shall be altered or amended." (Emphasis Supplied) (190 Miss. at 620, 199 So. at 298).

When the Court reversed its original holding, the principle expressed by Judge Griffith in his dissent was adopted by the Court in different language.

The duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff is well...