Messner v. Webb's City, Inc.
| Decision Date | 16 December 1952 |
| Citation | 62 So.2d 66 |
| Parties | MESSNER et al. v. WEBB'S CITY, Inc. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Carey & Harrison, St. Petersburg, for appellant.
Macfarlane, Ferguson, Allison & Kelly and T. Paine Kelly, Jr., Tampa, for appellee.
This is an appeal from a judgment upon a directed verdict entered in favor of the defendant-appellee at the close of plaintiff-appellant's case in a suit to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained through the negligence of the defendant.
The only evidence as to the circumstances surrounding the plaintiff's injury was that of the plaintiff herself. It appears therefrom that plaintiff entered defendant's store for the purpose of buying a straw hat. She testified at length as to her actions while in the store, but for our purposes the only facts necessary to relate here are that she was directed to proceed to a certain portion of the store by defendant's clerk; that, in walking down an aisle between two display counters or tables, she stepped on a 'hard rolling object,' which caused her to slip and fall to her injury; that, immediately after her fall, she and two of the clerks searched for the object which apparently caused her to fall, but were unable to find anything; that after she bought the hat and was on her way out of the store, she observed a thin nail, two inches long, of the type commonly known as a 'finishing nail', lying on the floor of the store near the entrance and 5 1/2 feet and to the left of the point where she had stepped on the 'hard rolling object'; that she was positive this nail was what had caused her to fall; and that at the time she stepped on the object 'just like a flash it flew through me 'That is a nail."
The rule is that the owner of premises is charged with the duty of exercising ordinary care to keep his premises in a reasonably safe condition for the purposes to which they are adapted. He is responsible for injuries to his invitees due to latent or concealed perils, known to him or which in the exercise of reasonable care, should have been known to him, and which were by the invitee unknown or by the exercise of due care could not have been known to such invitee, and, of course, in the absence of a warning by the owner as to such dangers. Hall v. Holland, Fla., 47 So.2d 889, 891. It should be noted, however, that the 'owner is entitled to assume that the invitee will perceive that which would be obvious to him upon the ordinary use of his own senses, and is not required to give to the invitee notice or warning of an obvious...
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