Stone v. Hotel Seville, Inc., 57-389
Decision Date | 24 June 1958 |
Docket Number | No. 57-389,57-389 |
Citation | 104 So.2d 847 |
Parties | Seymour STONE, Appellant, v. HOTEN SEVILLE, Inc., a Florida corporation, and Crosby Corporation, a Florida corporation, Appellees. |
Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Robert C. Lane and Curtiss B. Hamilton, Miami, for appellant.
Dixon, DeJarnette, Bradford & Williams, Miami, for appellees.
Affirmed.
This appeal is from a summary final judgment in an action for negligence. The trial judge determined from the complaint, answer, plaintiff's answers to interrogatories propounded by defendants, and the discovery deposition of the plaintiff taken by the defendants, that there was no material issue of fact and that the defendants were entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. It is my view that it does not affirmatively appear from the record that negligence could not have been found by a jury of reasonable men. Therefore, the summary judgment should be reversed.
The complaint alleges that the plaintiff was a guest in the defendant's hotel and that the defendants in violation of their duty to provide reasonably safe premises maintained a colorless and invisible glass wall or panel in a dimly lighted area, so that the plaintiff in attempting to pass through a passage way from the cocktail bar into the dining room, walked into the glass and was severely cut. The route through the cocktail bar to the dining room is the only route provided for passage from the lobby of the hotel to the dining room. There is no suggestion that the plaintiff was drinking since he was using the cocktail bar only as a route to the dining room. The archway or portal, between the bar and the dining room, was constructed so that there were two glass swinging doors in the center, and on either side of which there was a stationary glass divider about the same width as each door. About four feet in front of the two doors were two standards and covered rope connecting them; the width of the standards and rope was approximately the same as the two swinging doors. Although the dining room was also dimly lighted, the plaintiff could see a person or persons in the dining room. He took one of these persons to be a headwaiter and wished to make reservations for a dinner party.
The appellee urges that there can be no liability in this type of case because it is the plaintiff's duty to see that which would be obvious to him under the ordinary use of his senses and to exercise a reasonable degree of care for his own safety. Becksted v. Riverside Bank of Miami, Fla.1956, 85 So.2d 130 and cases cited therein. The determining point, then, is whether the glass panel...
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...injury was her failure to see that which, by the exercise of reasonable care, she should have seen.' See also Stone v. Hotel Seville, Fla.App.1958, 104 So.2d 847. Courts in other jurisdictions have reached similar conclusions and are in accord with Pettigrew v. Nite-Cap, Inc., In Rosenberg ......
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...invitee, would have seen the door had she exercised reasonable care. The next case that we wish to cite is the case of Stone v. Hotel Seville, Fla.App.1958, 104 So.2d 847. In this case the injury occurred when the plaintiff walked into a glass panel which was adjacent to the entrance to the......
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