Seiders v. Testa
| Decision Date | 25 August 1983 |
| Citation | 464 A.2d 933 |
| Parties | Robina SEIDERS v. Michele TESTA, Jr. and Joseph M. Testa, d/b/a Testa's Hotel and Restaurant. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Hale & Hamlin by Barry K. Mills (orally), Blue Hill, for plaintiff.
Mitchell & Stearns by John W. Ballou (orally), Bangor, for defendant.
Before McKUSICK, C.J., GODFREY, NICHOLS, CARTER * and WATHEN, JJ., and DUFRESNE, A.R.J.
After a jury trial in the Superior Court (Hancock County), plaintiff Robina Seiders was awarded $15,000.00 to compensate her for injuries proximately caused by the negligence of the defendants, owners and operators of Testa's Hotel and Restaurant in Bar Harbor. Motions for a directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict were denied by the trial justice, and the defendants have appealed to this Court. They claim that there was no evidence in the record from which the jury could rationally have concluded that the defendants were negligent. We disagree, and affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.
From the testimony presented at trial, the jury could rationally have found that the following events occurred on Monday, August 17, 1970. It was about 9:30 in the morning, when plaintiff Robina Seiders and her friend Mildred Leavitt entered Testa's Restaurant for breakfast. Robina Seiders was then 65 years of age and in good health. The restaurant was furnished with booths and free-standing tables; the tables and chairs were made of rattan, a light wicker-like material. The plaintiff and her friend were seated by the restaurant's hostess at the middle table in a row of three tables in the center of the dining room. Each of these tables had four chairs to accommodate four people. The restaurant was fairly busy at that particular time, but the table closest to the plaintiff's own table was empty.
After she finished her breakfast, Mrs. Seiders tried to push her chair back from the table to stand up. She found, however, that she was unable to do so, because the back of another diner's chair, in which another person was seated, by then stood directly behind her own chair, making it impossible for her to push back far enough to remove herself from the table. She explained it this way:
Well, when I stood up and tried to push the chair back, I couldn't push it back because it struck the chair behind me. And I tried to step out but in the meantime my leg caught between the table--the leg of the chair and the leg of the table, it caught in between and I couldn't get the leg through and I made a grab for the table and I went over with it.
Asked if she actually saw the person whose chair was in her way, the plaintiff replied, "Yes, I did see in a glimpse." 1 The plaintiff's fall resulted in a broken hip, which caused her to incur substantial medical expenses and to suffer continuing pain and disability.
The jury, after being properly instructed, found that both, the plaintiff and the defendants, were guilty of negligence, that their respective negligence proximately contributed to the plaintiff's injury, but that the negligence of the defendants was greater than that of the plaintiff. The jury further found that Mrs. Seiders' total damages were $25,000.00; her award was reduced to $15,000.00 on account of her own fault. 2 On the evidence in this record, we cannot say that the jury's verdict was "manifestly wrong"; the trial justice, therefore, did not err in denying the defendants' motions to set aside the verdict. See Barry v. Gurin, 405 A.2d 739, 740 (Me.1979) (quoting Ogden v. Libby, 159 Me. 485, 485-86, 195 A.2d 414, 414-15 (1963)).
A restaurant owner or operator owes a duty of care to business invitees such as Robina Seiders; the owner must exercise reasonable care to ensure that the premises are reasonably safe for use by patrons. Ordinarily, the determination of whether a defendant has exercised reasonable care in the circumstances of a particular case is left to the jury. In Jackson v. Frederick's Motor Inn, 418 A.2d 168 (Me.1980), we upheld a jury verdict against a motel-restaurant complex, where the plaintiff, a physically disabled woman, was jostled by a crowd in the motel lobby and shoved forward by an unidentified person, causing her to stumble over a chair and fall to the floor. We held that the jury in Jackson was justified in finding the defendant negligent in "not foreseeing the unruly departure of [a] large group of patrons anxious to leave the premises and in not removing a piece of furniture that impeded the movement of a great number of people." 418 A.2d at 172. Just so, in the case at bar, the jury...
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