Seabridge v. Poli
| Decision Date | 11 December 1922 |
| Citation | 98 Conn. 297,119 A. 214 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | SEABRIDGE v. POLI. |
Appeal from Superior Court, Fairfield County; Newell Jennings Judge.
Action by Mary E. Seabridge against Sylvester Z. Poli for personal injuries alleged to have been caused by defendant's negligence. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff for $2,000 and from an order denying his motion to set aside the verdict as contrary to the evidence, and from rulings on the evidence, the defendant appeals. Error.
The complaint set forth and the answer denied that a toilet room maintained by the defendant contained weighing scales which stood in a dangerous position and " constituted a source of danger to persons *** passing to and from said room," and was negligently maintained in a dangerous location, and that the plaintiff, while leaving this room, " was compelled *** to pass by" these scales, and while so doing, without knowledge of the unsafe conditions, and without negligence on her part, she tripped over the scales and was thereby thrown to the floor with great force, and that her consequent injuries were caused solely by the defendant's negligence in keeping the premises in the careless manner specified.
On the trial it was proved without dispute that the defendant maintained and conducted a variety theater in the city of Bridgeport; that for the use of female patrons he furnished a toilet room connected with the theater and entered through a door on the main floor; that a large majority of the female patrons, either on entering or on leaving the theater, went into this room; that it was 19 feet 10 inches long, and along one of its walls were four toilet closets or cabinets, and along its opposite wall various articles intended for the convenience of patrons; that among them was a weighing machine, 5 feet 6 inches in height, the top of the base of which was 7 3/4 inches above the floor and 17 inches wide and extended 25 1/2 inches from the wall into the room; that the space for passway between the outside edge of this base and the door of the opposite and nearest toilet closet when it was closed was 3 feet and 6 inches, and when this door was open and hanging at right angles with the front line of the closet the space was 14 inches, and that the position and location of the scales, cabinets, and other articles in the toilet room had remained the same for some months before the day of the accident to the plaintiff.
It was admitted also that among other articles which were located in the toilet room during the same time was a washbasin fixed on the same wall against which the weighing machine was standing and 2 feet and 7 inches from it, and so much farther from the entrance door of the room. The distance from that door to the weighing machine was 11 feet and 6 inches. The washbasin projected into the room about 20 inches. On the same wall, between the washbasin and the scales, was a roller towel rack, between which and the scales was a space of about 6 inches. The doors of the cabinets or closets faced this wall and the articles mentioned. When the door of any closet was opened outward, it was so set on its hinges that it was not stopped when it was at right angles with the front line of the closets, but could easily be swung around in a half circle against the door of the adjacent closet, thus leaving a space for passway between the closets and the weighing machine which was 3 feet and 6 inches wide at the narrowest place. Through this passway a person who wished to use or had used the washbasin, whether she was going directly from or to the entrance door or from or to the door of a closet, would pass by the weighing scales. In any case there was no obstruction to prevent such a person from seeing the scales and the other objects in the room.
Before any evidence was offered, the court permitted the jury to view the conditions in the toilet room, which it was agreed were then the same as at the time of the accident.
A plaintiff seeking to recover for injuries through negligence must make out a case free from contributory negligence.
William B. Ely and Edmund Zacher, both of New Haven, for appellant.
Samuel Reich, of Bridgeport, for appellee.
The plaintiff, by the defendant's invitation, was lawfully in the toilet room provided by him for the use of the patrons of his theater, and while she was there the defendant owed her the duty to use reasonable care to have and to keep the premises reasonably safe in every particular. Turgeon v. Connecticut Co., 84 Conn. 538, 541, 80 A. 714; Godfrey v. Connecticut Co., 98 Conn. 63, 118 A. 446. In her complaint the plaintiff alleged that the defendant failed to perform this duty to her because he negligently permitted a weighing machine to stand in the toilet room in such a position that it was dangerous to persons entering or leaving the room who were not aware of its position. It is not set forth, and it was not claimed, that the position of the machine was dangerous to persons who knew of its location. On the contrary, she asserts that she tripped over the scales while she was leaving the room and passing the scales " without knowing of the dangerous and unsafe condition." Moreover, it is manifest from the evidence produced that it could not reasonably be found that the position of the machine was dangerous to any person who knew where it stood and the consequent conditions in the room. Therefore the verdict for the plaintiff can be sustained only upon a conclusion from the evidence that the plaintiff did not in fact know particularly of the condition caused by the position of the weighing machine which the defendant permitted to stand in the room, and also that she would not have known of it if she had used her own sense with ordinary care. In the first place, if she did know of these circumstances, she had failed to prove an allegation in her complaint which was essential to her claim for redress. Upon this subject, the plaintiff testified that she had never before noticed the weighing machine. Whatever doubts other parts of her testimony and the other evidence may raise concerning the accuracy of her statement, it was the right of the jury to give it full credit in deciding this particular question, and we would not assume to interfere with their decision.
But if we admit that she did not have such knowledge in fact, it remained to determine further whether she would have had it if she had exercised reasonable care. For it is a familiar principle of law that a person is conclusively presumed to know what he would have known if ...
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...known of it. A person is conclusively presumed to know what he would have known if he had made ordinary use of his senses. Seabridge v. Poli, 98 Conn. 297, 119 A. 214; De Honey Harding, 8 Cir., 300 F. 696. See Buchholtz v. Incorporated Town of Radcliffe, 129 Iowa 27, 105 N.W. 336. Plaintiff......
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