Olinger v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.

• Decision Date: 29 March 1961
• Docket Number: No. 36038,36038
• Citation: 21 Ill.2d 469,173 N.E.2d 443
• Parties: Max OLINGER, Appellant, v. GREAT ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC TEA COMPANY et al., Appellees.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 443

173 N.E.2d 443

21 Ill.2d 469

Max OLINGER, Appellant, v. GREAT ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC TEA COMPANY et al., Appellees.

No. 36038.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

March 29, 1961.

Listeman & Bandy, East St. Louis, and R. K. Peek, Du Quoin, for appellant.

Oehmke, Dunham & Boman, East St. Louis, for appellees.

KLINGBIEL, Justice.

Plaintiff, Max Olinger, sued defendants, The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company and its store manager, Eddie Graves, for personal injuries sustained when he slipped and fell on the floor of defendants' store. The cause was submitted to a jury and plaintiff was awarded a verdict of $30,000. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict, which judgment was reversed by the Appellate Court. (26 IllApp.2d 88, 167 N.E.2d 595.) This court has granted plaintiff leave to appeal.

The issue in this cause, as was correctly stated by the Appellate Court, is whether, under the facts and circumstances most favorable to plaintiff, there was any evidence of negligence by defendants in the maintenance of the store premises which could properly be submitted to the jury. Donoho v. O'Connell's, Inc., 13 Ill.2d 113, 148 N.E.2d 434.

The facts, briefly stated, are as follows:

Early in the afternoon of August 22, 1956, plaintiff entered defendants' self-service chain store through the only customer entrance. He walked 20 to 25 feet in a southerly direction and then turned right into an aisle into the main portion of the store. As plaintiff turned to the right, he slipped and fell injuring his back.

Plaintiff testified that after he fell, he notice a substance on the floor where he had slipped. It was described by him as a thin oil, pinkish or light red in color, covering a spot of 6 or 7 inches. He saw a skid mark 3 1/2 to 4 feet long through this substance. He tasted it and found it was sweetish in taste, abrasive, a little bit sticky. Plaintiff also testified that some of the substance was on his shoes after the fall.

Other witnesses testified that they observed a small spot of a semi-solid reddish substance near the place where plaintiff had fallen. They described the spot as being no larger than a small jelly bean, smaller than a dime, the size of a nickel, possibly a quarter. The ambulance driver testified that he observed a reddish, semi-solid substance, about the size of the end of his finger, on plaintiff's right shoe. No one testified as to the identity or name of the substance observed.

At or near the corner where plaintiff feel, there was a notions counter having 4 or 5 open shelves upon which merchandise, such as gauze, first aid items, tooth paste, tooth brushes, shaving cream, hair oil, and similar items, were displayed. There was evidence tending to show that on the day of plaintiff's fall, bottles of Coldene, a red liquid cough medicine, were on display on the notions counter. One of plaintiff's witnesses testified that the second week in September, two or three weeks after the occurrence in question, he went to defendants' store at plaintiff's request and purchased a bottle of Coldene from the notions counter. This witness also testified that at the time of that purchase there was another bottle of Coldene on display which looked like some of the liquid was out of it and was sticky on the outside.

The trial court ruled that the evidence warranted submission of the issue of defendants' negligence to the jury. In denying defendants' motions for directed verdict, the trial judge stated: 'Well, there is no question but what, under the Fourth District Appellate Court law, this case isn't any good, but under the Supreme Court law, I think they have practically said if you fall down in a store the store is liable. Regardless of what my feelings are in the matter, I have to be guided by the Supreme Court.' The Appellate Court disagreed, and reversed the judgment entered on the verdict in favor of plaintiff. We are thus confronted with the problem of ascertaining, from the evidence and inferences most favorable to plaintiff, whether the issue of defendants' negligence in the maintenance of the store premises should have been submitted to the jury. Mueller v. Elm Park Hotel Co., 398 Ill. 60, 75 N.E.2d 314.

It is not questioned that plaintiff's status, at the time of his injury, was that of a business invitee on defendants' premises. As such, defendants owed him the duty of exercising ordinary care in maintaining the premises in a reasonably safe condition. Geraghty v. Burr Oak Lanes, Inc., 5 Ill.2d 153, 125 N.E.2d 47. The applicability of this familiar rule provokes no challenge. Its actual application, however, raises the difficult question of the kind and quantity of evidence necessary to establish a breach of that duty.

In the recent case of Donoho v. O'Connell's, Inc., 13 Ill.2d 113, 148 N.E.2d 434, we carefully reviewed and re-examined the case law of both this and other jurisdictions pertaining to the liability of owners and proprietors for injuries to business invitees caused by slipping on foreign substances on their floors. Therefore we consider it unnecessary to repeat the factual analysis of the many cases on this subject which appeared in the Donoho opinion. But, in view of certain statements of the trial judge and the parties in this case, we do feel compelled to again outline the general principles of law which are involved here.

Where a business invitee is injured by slipping on a foreign substance on the premises, liability may be imposed if the substance was placed there by the negligence of the proprietor or his servants, or, if the substance was on the premises through acts of third persons or there is no showing how it got there, liability may be imposed if it appears that the proprietor or his servant knew of its presence, or that the substance was there a sufficient length of time so that in the exercise of ordinary care its presence should have been discovered. Davis v. South Side Elevated Railroad Co., 292 Ill. 378, 127 N.E. 66, 10 A.L.R. 254; Pabst v. Hillmans, 293 Ill.App. 547, 13 N.E.2d 77; Schmelzel v. Kroger Grocery and Baking Co., 342 Ill.App. 501, 96 N.E.2d 885; Annotation, 61 A.L.R.2d 6 et seq.

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