Rubey v. William Morris, Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 July 1953
• Citation: 66 So.2d 218
• Parties: RUBEY et al. v. WILLIAM MORRIS, Inc.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 218

66 So.2d 218

RUBEY et al. v. WILLIAM MORRIS, Inc.

Supreme Court of Florida, Special Division A.

July 17, 1953.

Murray Sams, Jr., and Thomas C. Britton, Miami, for appellants.

Dixon, DeJarnette & Bradford, Miami, for appellee.

SEBRING, Justice.

The plaintiffs below have appealed from a summary final judgment entered upon a motion to dismiss a complaint which alleged, in substance, as follows:

The defendant operated and managed a hotel open to the public. The plaintiffs, who were husband and wife, jointly engaged a room at such hotel from the defendant for a valuable consideration. While she was a guest of such hotel, the plaintiff, Mary Rubey, was caused to fall by a dangerous and unsafe condition, negligently and carelessly caused and maintained by the defendant upon the premises of the hotel, namely a rolled up bath mat upon the floor of the bathroom of the room engaged by plaintiffs, so placed as to trip any person entering such bathroom, upon which such plaintiff did in fact trip and fall, and so placed that it could not be seen at night with the lights located in such hotel room, which were then turned on, but could only be seen by the bathroom light, which could not be turned on except by a person who had already entered such bathroom. Plaintiffs had not previously entered such bathroom and were not aware of the existence of such dangerous condition. Such rolled up bath mat had been so placed by the servants of the defendant acting within the scope of their authority, or such servants had carelessly and negligently failed to remove such hazard before plaintiffs were placed by the defendant in said premises.

The question is whether the complaint wholly fails to state a claim for relief.

In support of its position that the complaint does not state a claim for relief the appellee has the following to say in its brief:

'The facts as alleged in the plaintiffs' complaint were assumed to be true by the Court, for the purpose of the hearing on the defendant's motion to dismiss. The court found that, assuming all the facts to be true, the complaint failed to state a cause of action. We are faced in this case with a simple 'either-or' proposition. There are two, and only two, possibilities in this case and the appellees contend that neither of these possibilities can form a basis for a cause of action.

'Admittedly there was a rolled up bath mat on the floor of the appellants' bathroom. Admittedly the room was dark and the light switch referred to in the complaint was located on the far side of the bathroom. But even assuming these facts, the complaint shows that the appellant was guilty of such contributory negligence that she cannot recover from the defendant as a matter of law.

'Because of the lighting conditions existing in the appellants' suite, this bathmat, as it lay on the floor, was either visible or invisible to the injured appellant. If the lighting conditions were such that this mat was visible, then the appellant should have seen what was there to be seen * * *. If, on the other hand, the lighting available to the plaintiff was so poor that a rolled up bathmat on the floor of the bathroom could not be seen, then the appellant was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.'

In support of its position that appellant was chargeable with the duty of seeing what was there to be seen, the appellee cites Matson v. Tip Top Grocery Co., 151 Fla. 247, 9 So.2d 366; Clyde Bar Inc., v. McClamma, 152 Fla. 118, 10 So.2d 916; Miller v. Shull, Fla., 48 So.2d 521; Earley v. Morrison Cafeteria Co. of Orlando, Fla., 61 So.2d 477. To sustain its position that the appellant would be guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law if she entered a bathroom where the lighting afforded was so poor that a rolled up bath mat on the floor could not be seen by her, the appellee relies upon Tutwiler v. I. Beverally Nalle, Inc., 152 Fla. 479, 12 So.2d 163, as being controlling in principle.

We commend appellees counsel for the frank and open manner in which they have presented their contentions in support of the order appealed from. If all cases brought here were presented in such fashion it would lighten the labors of an already overburdened court immeasurably. We wish it were only possible, as a reward for such frankness, to be able to say that we agree with the contentions of the appellee that the judgment appealed from should stand affirmed--but we find ourselves unable to do so in the light of what we conceive to be the controlling law on the subject.

We recognize the general rule quoted by appellee that 'A person who comes into an unfamiliar situation, where a condition of darkness renders the use of his eyesight ineffective to define his surroundings, is not justified, in the...