Rawls v. Hochschild, Kohn & Co.

• Decision Date: 21 April 1955
• Docket Number: No. 131,131
• Citation: 207 Md. 113,62 A.L.R.2d 124,113 A.2d 405
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 62 A.L.R.2d 124 Nannie RAWLS v. HOCHSCHILD, KOHN & COMPANY, Inc.

Page 113

207 Md. 113

113 A.2d 405, 62 A.L.R.2d 124

Nannie RAWLS v. HOCHSCHILD, KOHN & COMPANY, Inc.

No. 131.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 21, 1955.

Julius G. Maurer, Baltimore (H. LaRue Parke, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Thomas G. Andrew and Jeffrey B. Smith, Baltimore (Rollins, Smalkin, Weston & Andrew, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

DELAPLAINE, Judge.

Mrs. Nannie Rawls, of Baltimore, entered this suit in the Superior Court of Baltimore City against Hochschild, Kohn & Company, Inc., owner of the department store at the northwest corner of Howard and Lexington Streets in Baltimore, to recover for personal injuries sustained in a fall on a stairway in defendant's store.

The accident happened on March 24, 1952. Plaintiff testified that she tried to enter the north door on Howard Street on that day about ten minutes before 1 o'clock, but found it locked. The store was closed on that day until 1 o'clock on account of the funeral of one of defendant's officers. Plaintiff testified that, although there was a drizzle of rain, she waited on the sidewalk for about ten minutes. She pushed the door again at 1 o'clock. At that time the door was open, and upon entering the store she proceeded to a stairway leading to the basement. On reaching the first landing, she glanced down the steps to the second landing and did not see anything on the steps, but she slipped on the second step and tumbled down the other four steps to the second landing. She further testified that, by holding the hand rail and raising herself, she saw some water on the fourth step above the landing.

The porter, who unlocked the store doors, testified that on the day of the accident he unlocked the north door about fifteen or twenty minutes before 1 o'clock. He said that inside the door was a roped-off area with chairs where customers could wait from the time when the door was unlocked until the time when the ropes were taken down, and that a number of people were waiting in the roped-off area, and none of them went to the basement before he took down the ropes at 1 oc'clock.

The trial judge submitted the case to the jury, but they failed to agree upon a verdict. The judge thereupon granted defendant's motion for a judgment n. o. v. On this appeal from the judgment, the question is whether there was any legally sufficient evidence of negligence of defendant.

It is an accepted statement of law that a possessor of land is subject to liability for bodily harm caused to business visitors by a natural or artificial condition thereon if, but only if, he (1) knows, or by the exercise of reasonable care could discover, the condition which, if known to him, he should realize as involving an unreasonable risk to them, and (2) has no reason to believe that they will discover the condition or realize the risk involved therein, and (3) invites or permits them to enter or remain upon the land without exercising reasonable care to make the condition reasonably safe, or to give a warning adequate to enable them to avoid the harm without relinquishing any of the services which they are entitled to receive, if the possessor is a public utility. 2 Restatement, Torts, sec. 343.

It is the law in Maryland, as in other States, that the proprietor of a store owes a duty to his customers to exercise ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition, and will be liable for injuries sustained in consequence of a failure to do so. The customer is entitled to assume that the proprietor will exercise reasonable care to ascertain the condition of the premises, and if he discovers any unsafe condition he will either take such action as will correct the condition and make it reasonably safe or give a warning of the unsafe condition. Hochschild, Kohn & Co. v. Murdoch, 154 Md. 575, 141 A. 905; Dickey v. Hochschild, Kohn & Co., 157 Md. 448, 146 A. 282.

Thus in Moore v. American Stores Co., 169 Md. 541, 546, 182 A. 436, 438, where there was a place on the floor of a store than was so greasy and slippery that defendant slipped and fell, and it was apparent from the very nature of the condition that it must have existed long enough to permit the inference that if the defendant had exercised reasonable care it must have known of the condition, this Court held that if the defendant knowingly permitted its floor to be in an unsafe condition, it had failed to discharge its duty to exercise ordinary care for the protection of its customers. The Court there said that a storekeeper is not under a duty to exercise any higher degree of care than any other inviter, but 'to discharge the duty imposed upon him of exercising ordinary care for the safety of business visitors to his premises, he may be required to take different measures or precautions than would one who invited others to his private residence for purposes of social intercourse or even business.'

This distinction was noted by the American Law Institute in the following comment: 'One who enters a private residence even for purposes connected with the owner's business, is entitled to expect only such preparation as a reasonably prudent householder makes for the reception of such visitors. On the other hand, one entering a store, theatre, office building or hotel, is entitled to expect that his host will make far greater preparations to secure the safety of his patrons than a householder will make for his social or even his business visitors.' 2 Restatement, Torts, sec. 343e.

However, the proprietor of a store is not an insurer of his customers while they are on the premises, and no presumption of negligence on the part of the proprietor arises merely from a showing that an injury was sustained in his store. To recover in an action for damages the plaintiff must show that the defendant was guilty of negligence which produced the particular injury alleged. In Benedick v. Potts, 88 Md. 52, 55, 40 A. 1067, 1068, 41 L.R.A. 478, Chief Judge McSherry explained this basic principle as follows:

'As an injury may occur from causes other than the negligence of the party sued, it is obvious that before a liability on account of that injury can be fastened upon a particular individual, it must be shown, or there must be evidence legally tending to show, that he is responsible for it; that is, that he has been guilty of the negligence that produced or occasioned the injury. In no instance can the bare fact that an injury has happened, of itself and divorced from all the surrounding circumstances, justify the inference that the injury was caused by negligence. It is true that direct proof of negligence is not necessary. Like any other fact, negligence may be established by the proof of circumstances from which its existence may be inferred. But this inference must, after all, be a legitimate inference and not a mere speculation or conjecture. There must be a logical relation and connection between the circumstances proved and the conclusion sought to be adduced from them. This principle is never departed from, and...