Sheraton Whitehall Corp. v. McConnell
| Decision Date | 18 September 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,Nos. 34733,34734,s. 34733,1 |
| Citation | 88 Ga.App. 725,77 S.E.2d 752 |
| Parties | SHERATON WHITEHALL CORPORATION v. McCONNELL. McCONNELL v. SHERATON WHITEHALL CORPORATION |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. The petition, alleging that the plaintiff, while attending a conference in the bill room of the defenant's hotel, walked from the center aisle of the room toward the speaker's platform across a highly polished dance floor, the front edge of which was perpendicular to the carpeted area of the room and the side of which sloped downward, and that the plaintiff did not see the sloping board attached to the side of the dance floor but slipped and fell upon it, thereby sustaining injury, set out a cause of action, and the court did not err in overruling the general demurrer thereto.
2. The cross-bill of exceptions is without merit.
Mrs. Clara E. McConnell sued out a writ of attachment from the Superior Court of Fulton County against Sheraton Whitehall Corporation, a Massachusetts corporation. Her declaration in attachment as amended was substantially as follows: The defendant owns and operates for profit the Sheraton Bon Air Hotel in Augusta, Georgia; and, on March 3, 1949, the plaintiff was a paying guest at this hotel, where she was attending the Annual Conference of the Georgia Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, of which society the plaintiff was then the Recording Secretary. The defendant provided a large room known as the Crystal Ball Room on the main floor for the accommodation of the conference and as a part of the facilities of the hotel to attract the patronage of those attending the conference. The defendant arranged the Crystal Ball Room as follows: The floor was carpeted, except for a dance floor which occupied less than one fourth of the area of the room and was elevated about an inch and a half or two inches above the carpeted floor area. A raised platform was placed over the back half of the dance floor. The platform was about eighteen inches high and extended beyond the dance floor on either side to the carpeted area of the room, with a carpeted space between the ends of the platform and the walls of the room. Chairs were provided on the platform for the officers of the conference, with a chair and table for the Recording Secretary to the left of the platform, facing the audience. Chairs for the audience were provided on the carpeted area immediately in front of the dance floor and facing the platform; and these chairs were arranged so that there was a center aisle, running from the rear of the room to the center of the dance floor, for access to the chairs and the platform. There were flowers and other decorations on the front of the platform, and to go upon it from the center aisle it was necessary to walk across the dance floor, step down from the dance floor, walk along the capreted area on the side of the room, and then step up to the platform. As Recording Secretary, the plaintiff was expected and required to be seated on the platform, at the table and chair placed there for her. On the side of the dance floor and in front of her table and chair, there was a board or plank, about two or two and one half inches in width and running the length of the dance floor, which sloped from the surface of the dance floor, to which it was affixed, to the carpeted area of the room. There was no sloping board at the front of the dance floor. The dance floor was constructed of wood, and its surface and that of the adjoining wooden plank or board were polished, slick and slippery.
On the afternoon of March 3, 1949, the plaintiff entered the Crystal Ball Room to take her place as Recording Secretary. She proceeded down the center aisle and took a seat on the front row of the seats for the audience, while report was being given from the platform. Afterwards the plaintiff proceeded toward her place on the platform, walking across the dance floor and then stepping from it. As she stepped from the dance floor, placing her left foot forward, her right foot came in contact with the sloping board or plank (which the plaintiff did not see and did not know was there), and her right foot slipped forward onto the carpeted area of the room; her body crumpled forward, and her right ankle was broken in the slip and fall.
The damages sought were for medical expenses incurred and for pain and suffering, and it was further alleged that the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury and damage was the defendant$hs negligence: (a) in maintaining the dance floor in its ball room with the sloping wooden plank or board adjoined thereto; (b) in arranging for the accommodation of the conference in its ball room with the sloping wooden board or plank adjoined to the dance floor; (c) in maintaining the dance floor with the sloping wooden board or plank adjoined when the defendant in the exercise of ordinary care should have known that such was a place of danger with respect to persons stepping from the side of the dance floor; (d) in arranging the platform for the conference at the back of the dance floor, thus making it necessary, for persons desiring to go onto the platform from the center aisle, to cross the dance floor, instead of placing the platform at the front of the dance floor, so that persons going upon the platform could do so without crossing the dance floor; (e) in not placing hand rails or guard rails on or around the side of the dance floor near the place where the sloping board was situated; (f) and (g) in maintaining and providing the dance floor without uniformity of construction, in that the front of the dance floor was perpendicular to the carpeted area of the room while the side was sloping, which was misleading to those entering the dance floor from the front and leaving it from the side.
The defendant filed general and special demurrers to the declaration. On January 30, 1953, the court overruled the general demurrers and sustained certain of the special demurrers with leave to amend in 15 days. The plaintiff amended her declaration on February 9, 1953, and the defendant...
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...Sons, Inc., 46 Ga.App. 830, 836, 169 S.E. 508; Georgia Power Co. v. Sheats, 58 Ga.App. 730, 741, 199 S.E. 582; Sheraton Whitehall Corp. v. McConnell, 88 Ga.App. 725, 77 S.E.2d 752; Wicker v. Roberts, 91 Ga.App. 490, 86 S.E.2d 350; Goldsmith v. Hazelwood, 93 Ga.App. 466, 92 S.E.2d 48; cert. ......
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