Schrader v. Kriesel

• Decision Date: 22 December 1950
• Docket Number: No. 35177,35177
• Citation: 232 Minn. 238,45 N.W.2d 395
• Parties: SCHRADER et al. v. KRIESEL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 395

45 N.W.2d 395

232 Minn. 238

SCHRADER et al. v. KRIESEL.

No. 35177.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 22, 1950.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. A possessor of business premises is under a legal obligation to construct and maintain his premises so that they will be in a reasonably safe condition for use by those persons whom he invites to enter thereon.

2. The standard of care owed to business invitees remains the same whether a business is conducted indoors or outdoors, and what constitutes ordinary care for the safety of customers in a given case is a jury question where reasonable men may differ as to what constitutes ordinary care.

3. Assumption of risk is to be distinguished from contributory negligence in all cases save where an assumption of risk is so unreasonable that it also constitutes contributory negligence.

Brenner & Bouchard, Minneapolis, for appellant.

Fred O. Dressel, Ray F. Merriam, Minneapolis, for respondents.

LORING, Chief Justice.

These appeals arise out of two tort actions in which plaintiffs, husband and wife, are suing defendant, a used-car dealer, in connection with injuries sustained by the wife while walking on the business premises of defendant. The actions are for personal injuries to plaintiff Martha Schrader and medical expenses and loss of services to plaintiff Charles Schrader. Verdicts were returned in favor of both plaintiffs. Defendant moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdicts or in the alternative for a new trial. These motions were in all respects denied. The relief sought in these appeals is a reversal of the orders denying defendant's alternative motions.

These actions arose out of an accident which occurred on November 18, 1947, between 5:30 and 6 p.m. The accident occurred in an outdoor used-car lot operated by defendant. Defendant's used-car lot occupies two-thirds of a city block located at the intersection of Huron and Hennepin avenues in the city of Minneapolis. A string of lights surrounded the lot. The power of the lights and the height at which they were located is not indicated in the record. There was a floodlight located in the center of the lot, the beam of which was directed at a small office building at the northern end of the lot and halfway between its east and west boundaries.

The weather conditions at the time of the accident are described in weather reports which tend to prove that snow began falling at 11 p.m. on November 17, 1947, and ended at 9:30 a.m. November 18, when light snow and a light freezing drizzle began. The light snow and freezing drizzle ended at 10:50 a.m. on November 18. Snowfall on November 18 was two inches. The average depth on the ground at 6:30 p.m. on November 18 until midnight was 3.5 inches. Defendant's lot at the time of the accident was described by witnesses as being covered with loose snow and with ice or hard snow underneath. It is conceded that there were lumps of ice on the lot and that the surface of the lot was made bumpy and rough by hummocks, ruts, and ridges. At the time plaintiffs entered the car lot on the evening of November 18 it was getting dusk, and the driveway, where plaintiffs entered the car lot, was dimly lighted.

Plaintiffs had been on the used-car lot November 14, 1947, at which time they had selected a used car and made a down payment on it to defendant. On the evening of the accident, plaintiffs were returning to close the transaction begun on the 14th. Plaintiffs entered the lot at the eastern or Hennepin avenue entrance and walked along a roadway between the parked cars on display in the lot. This roadway led to the small business office located about the center of the north line of the lot. About halfway between Hennepin avenue and the small office building, Mr. Schrader stopped to look at a car which had attracted his attention, and he called his wife over to look at it. When Mrs. Schrader started toward her husband, she slipped in a rut and fell, breaking her leg. The rut in which Mrs. Schrader slipped was two or three inches deep, five or six inches wide, and appeared to have been made by a car wheel. Mr. Schrader testified that he saw a skid mark about a foot long where his wife's left foot had slid toward the rut. Mrs. Schrader was wearing overshoes at the time of the accident. She testified that on entering the lot she had noticed that its surface was rough, that she did not see any ruts, and that the hummocks of ice were covered with snow. She also testified that she had observed the surface of the lot during her previous visit on November 14, that there was snow and ice on it, but that it was not as bad as on the night of the accident. Plaintiffs, however, did not use the Hennepin avenue entrance on their previous visit, and Mrs. Schrader had not been on the roadway where she ultimately fell.

On these appeals defendant has raised three issues:

(1) Did the evidence present a jury issue on the question of defendant's negligence?

(2) Did the evidence present a jury issue on the question of defendant's negligence being the proximate cause of plaintiff's injury?

(3) Was Mrs. Schrader contributorily negligent as a matter of law?

Ordinarily, of course, questions of negligence, ¹ contributory negligence, ² and proximate cause ³ are questions of fact for the jury where reasonable men may differ as to what constitutes ordinary care and proximate causal connection upon the evidence presented. The rule and the exception, in the case of negligence, has been correctly stated as follows: '* * * the question of negligence is generally for the jury; and 'it is only where the facts are such that all reasonable men must draw the same conclusion from them that the question of negligence is ever considered as one of law for the court." May Department Stores Co. v. Bell, 8 Cir., 61 F.2d 830, 840. ⁴ The rule and the exception, as stated above, are equally applicable with reference to questions of proximate cause ⁵ and contributory negligence. ⁶

In reviewing the lower court's rulings on defendant's motions, the question presented is whether there was substantial evidence to sustain the verdicts. In determining that question, we must accept as true the evidence favorable to the party against whom the motion runs, and he is entitled to the benefit of all favorable inferences that may reasonably be drawn therefrom. If the evidence so considered was such that reasonable men might reach different conclusions, then the case was one for the jury. ⁷

1. On the issue of defendant's negligence, the evidence introduced was that defendant's outdoor used-car lot was in a 'bumpy' or 'rough' condition generally; that at the particular place where plaintiff fell there was a rut or tire track two or three inches deep and five to six inches wide; that the surface of the lot generally--and at the point where Mrs. Schrader fell--was icy and covered with snow; that the portion of the lot where she fell was a dimly lighted entrance or driveway to the car lot; and that defendant knew of these conditions and had done nothing to change or improve them. Under the rule already stated, we may take this evidence to be true and hence to represent the facts. We may add to this the admitted facts that defendant's used-car lot was a place of business to which customers were invited and that plaintiffs were on defendant's premises for the purpose of transacting business. On these facts, one question presented is: What care was defendant bound to exercise with respect to maintaining a safe entrance to his premises? Viewing the present cases in that light, the case of Dore v. Swift & Co., 175 Minn. 545, 546, 221 N.W. 904, 905, is conclusive on the facts here presented. In the Dore case, plaintiff was a woman seeking employment at defendant's plant. She arrived at the plant about 7 a.m. of April 5, which followed a night of sleet and snow. The defendant's guard on the premises offered to show her the way to the employment office, and advised her: 'Be kind of careful, it may be a little slippery here this morning.' It was slippery. Plaintiff fell and was injured. The jury returned a verdict for plaintiff. When defendant appealed from an order denying its laternative motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial, this court held that defendant's negligence was a question of fact for the jury, and the order was affirmed. A case similar to the present ones arose in Missouri when a customer slipped and fell on the icy and snowcovered driveway of a store's free parking lot. Defendant there contended that weather conditions made it impossible to remove ice and snow from its parking lot within an hour after it had stopped snowing and that no jury could be allowed to predicate a finding of negligence upon its failure to do so. The court refused to consider the broader question of what defendant's duty was with respect to the whole parking lot, stating, 'We are concerned in this case, * * * only with its alleged negligence as to the driveway.' Evans v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., Mo.App., 104 S.W.2d 1035, 1040. Certainly, the alleged impracticability of keeping defendant's premises safe does not loom so large when the place where the injury occurred was a driveway that could have been cleared of ice and snow or, at least, sanded. We think that a finding of negligence on defendant's part is amply sustained by the evidence showing failure to maintain a safe pedestrian entrance to his place of business. We do not, however, need to rest these cases solely upon that narrow basis because of the manner in which this particular accident occurred. Here, plaintiffs were on defendant's business premises for the purpose of closing a transaction for the purchase of a car. The transaction had not been closed, and Mr. Schrader, at least, was still looking at other cars on the lot as he entered. He noticed a car that interested him and called his wife's attention to it. It was at that moment that Mrs. Schrader fell and...