Stevens v. Dovre
| Citation | 248 Md. 15,234 A.2d 596 |
| Decision Date | 08 November 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 612,612 |
| Parties | Marian E. STEVENS et al. v. Eric H. DOVRE et al. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Samuel D. Hill, Baltimore (George W. White, Jr., and Buckmaster, White, Mindel & Clarke, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.
Eugene A. Alexander, III, Baltimore (Nevin E. Leese and Rome & Rome, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.
Before HAMMOND, C. J., and HORNEY, MARBURY, BARNES and FINAN, JJ.
This case comes to us from the Circuit Court for Baltimore County where the trial judge at the close of the plaintiffs' case granted the defendant-appellees, Eric H. Dovre and Barbara F. Dovre, a directed verdict on the ground that the evidence showed that they had not been primarily negligent. The facts leading up to the institution of the suit are as follows. On November 21, 1964, the plaintiff-appellants, Marian E. Stevens and Leland J. Stevens, and the appellees, who were members of the same church 'couples club,' had arranged to meet at a bowling alley and proceed to the appellees' home where the couples club had arranged a party at which Mrs. Stevens was to be a co-hostess with Mrs. Dovre. Mrs. Stevens arrived at the Dovre home at about 9:00 p. m., or shortly thereafter, and walked across the lawn and up the steps to the front door. At this time Mrs. Stevens was carrying in her hands a tray of brownies and noticed nothing unusual while mounting the steps and entering the house. Shortly after 11:00 p. m. when the party had ended and the other guests had departed, Mrs. Stevens prepared to leave and her husband and Mr. Dovre took the brownie pans and a coffee pot to be placed in the Stevens' car, while Mrs. Stevens started after them unassisted.
Mrs. Stevens, who was sixty-four years old, suffered from poor eyesight as a result of a cataract operation that she underwent some sixteen years prior thereto and a detached retina sustained seven or eight years before the accident. To correct this condition she wore thick-lensed bifocal eyeglasses. She had known Mrs. Dovre for a period of about a year although she had never previously visited the Dovre home, but on occasion had remarked to Mrs. Dovre that she did not see very well.
When leaving the Dovres' home it was necessary to descend two brick steps. These steps were set on a concrete slab which was about four and one-half inches higher than the concrete walkway leading from the front entrance of the house to the driveway. This walkway was not as wide as the concrete slab which extended outward from each side of the walkway onto the lawn.
When Mrs. Stevens entered the house she walked across the lawn and stepped onto the concrete slab from the grass. When she left the house on her way to the car she attempted to walk from the slab onto the walkway where she fell.
Appellants urge that the judge below erred in granting a directed verdict under the circumstances presented in this case. They rely on Mrs. Stevens' poor sight, of which Mrs. Dovre knew, the location of the concrete slab and its appearance, as being factors which, in combination, go to show that negligence on the part of the Dovres could be found or inferred by the minds of reasonable men constituting a jury.
On the basis of the record before us we do not agree. While Mrs. Stevens' sight was concededly impaired, when asked about her vision with glasses which she was wearing at the time, she answered that her vision was 'pretty fair.' She had no trouble negotiating the steps when entering the house and required no assistance in doing so. Her husband apparently felt that there was no need to assist or guide her down the steps and, in fact, he went on ahead with Mr. Dovre to the car for the purpose of placing the cooking utensils therein.
Although the appellants claim that the concrete slab from which Mrs. Stevens was stepping when she fell was unusual both in its appearance and location, their own photographs, admitted in evidence, showed that the house next door to the Dovres' had a slab at the base of the front steps that was identical. The...
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Sherman v. Suburban Trust Co., 43
...perplexing is the treatment of so-called social guests. See Telak v. Maszczenski, 248 Md. 476, 237 A.2d 434 (1968); Stevens v. Dovre, 248 Md. 15, 234 A.2d 596 (1967); Paquin v. McGinnis, 246 Md. 569, 229 A.2d 86 (1967). For a discussion of the idiosyncracies of Maryland law in this area, se......
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...and the risk involved. Paquin v. McGinnis, 246 Md. 569, 573-74, 229 A.2d 86 (1967). See also Bramble, supra; Stevens v. Dovre, 248 Md. 15, 18, 234 A.2d 596 (1967). Furthermore, no special standard of care is imposed upon the host when the social guest is a child. Laser v. Wilson, 58 Md.App.......
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Kight v. Bowman
...229 A.2d 86. Paquin first decided in this jurisdiction the duty of a home owner to a 'social guest', equated in Stevens v. Dovre, 248 Md. 15, at 18, 234 A.2d 596, with 'licensee', and in Telak v. Maszczenski, 248 Md. 476, 483, 237 A.2d 434, with 'licensee by invitation'. The discussion in P......
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Telak v. Maszczenski
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