Rankin v. Brockton Pub. Mkt., Inc.
| Decision Date | 27 July 1926 |
| Citation | 153 N.E. 97,257 Mass. 6 |
| Parties | RANKIN v. BROCKTON PUBLIC MARKET, inc. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Norfolk County; C. T. Callahan, Judge.
Action of tort by Elizabeth W. Rankin against the Brockton Public Market, Inc., to recover for injury alleged to have been sustained while plaintiff was a customer in defendant's store. Verdict was directed for defendant, and plaintiff excepts. Exceptions. overruled.
Asa P. French, of Boston, for plaintiff.
J. W. & T. F. McAnrney, of Boston, and Katzmann & Vahey, of Plymouth, for defendant.
The plaintiff's declaration in three counts alleged, first, that while she was upon the premises of the defendant as a customer and invitee she was injured by reason of the negligence of the defendant, its servants and agents, by being struck on the head with a bottle of oil which fell from a carrier device for conveying packages from the counters to the shipping room; second, that by reason of the negligence of the defendant, its servants and agents, she was injured by being struck on the head by a heavy object of a description unknown to her; third, merely that she was injured owing to the negligence of the defendants, its servants and agents.
The case is before us upon exceptions saved to the exclusion of certain evidence and to the order of the trial judge directing a verdict for the defendant.
The propriety of directing the verdict depends upon the state of the evidence and of the pleadings at the moment the ruling was made. At that time there was evidence that, on the day alleged, the plaintiff was a customer and invitee in the market of the defendant; that when she turned to leave the delicatessen counter, after an unsuccessful inquiry for a salad, as it seemed to her, ‘a crash came down on the top of her head-it came down like the roof on her head,’ and she remembered no more till she regained consciousness and found herself lying on the floor in a different place surrounded by a crowd among whom was a girl in a white coat or apron, sobbing; that, on the evening of the same day, a physician found a small swelling over the ‘parietal occipital region’ (this we take to be the side of the back of the head) which, on the next day, was the size of a small egg; that, in his opinion, a blow from an object dropping on her head and ‘causing those immediate and subsequent symptoms' would be an adequate cause for the condition he found; that a saleswoman in the bottled goods department took a tin pan about twelve or fourteen inches long, provided for the purpose, from under a counter, put in it a pint bottle of olive oil and a half pint bottle of salad dressing with nothing else, stood upon a stool about two feet high and placed pan and bottles on the endless belt of a carrier which took merchandise to the shipping room; that she turned around to go back to her counter, toward the delicatessen counter, and saw the bottle hit the floor, and that she did not see it between the time she placed it on the carrier belt and the time it hit the floor; that she had never seen anything fall from the belt, though she had seen cases where girls had thrown bread up on the belt but too high so that it went over the belt; that she did not remember any sound, but she saw the bottle hit the floor; that a salesman, assisted by others, helped the plaintiff to another room; that he saw no one touch her before he reached her; that she was near the delicatessen counter, ‘in a lying position, half sitting position, on the floor,’ not head down; ‘kind of sitting down with one hand out to the right as though she had slid down.’ The carrier was six feet nine inches from the floor, and its endless belt was eighteen inches wide. It ran over the edge of the counter. There were other customers near the counter.
That is all the evidence set out in the bill of exceptions which shows what took place at the time the plaintiff fell and what caused the fall. Manifestly it is insufficient to prove any negligence of the defendant or its servants. The cause of the fall is purely conjectural. No one saw anything hit her. If, in fact, she was hit upon the head by the bottle, there is nothing but conjecture to explain how the bottle came to fall. There is no evidence of any negligent act. The situation is not one where, in the circumstances shown by the evidence with the fair inferences to be drawn from it, the mere fact that the event took place shows that the defendant or its servants or agents were careless. Washburn v. R....
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...supra § 1078. In discussing this problem, he cites Northern Central Coal Co. v. Hughes, 224 F. 57 (8th Cir.) and Rankin v. Brockton Public Market, Inc., 257 Mass. 6, 153 N.E. 97, both personal injury cases in which the post rem statements of the employee were held incompetent as against the......
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