Taylor v. Northern States Power Co.
| Decision Date | 12 October 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 30066.,30066. |
| Citation | 192 Minn. 415,256 N.W. 674 |
| Parties | TAYLOR v. NORTHERN STATES POWER CO. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal from District Court, Blue Earth County; Harry A. Johnson, Judge.
Action by Lucy Pope Taylor against the Northern States Power Company. From an order denying her motion for a new trial after verdict for defendant, plaintiff appeals.
Order reversed.
Wilson & Wilson, of Mankato, for appellant.
Briggs, Weyl & Briggs, of St. Paul, and Morse & Morse, of Mankato, for respondent.
Plaintiff appeals from the order denying her a new trial after a verdict for defendant.
The motion for a new trial was based upon one adverse ruling excluding an item of evidence offered by plaintiff. The ruling is the only error assigned on this appeal. The action is to recover damages on account of personal injuries received by plaintiff on February 13, 1933, when she slipped on the sales floor of defendant's office building in the city of Mankato and broke her hip. The negligence alleged against defendant was that it permitted its waxed linoleum floor to become wet, sloppy, and dangerously slippery from melting snow and ice. That plaintiff fell and received the serious injury stated is not controverted. Nor is the fact that the floor where she fell was waxed battleship linoleum. There is a sharp dispute in the evidence as to whether the place where she went down was wet or dry. It appears that the accident happened some time about or after 11:30 a. m. on the day above mentioned. It was a cold day. There had been a slight snowfall earlier that day. A few minutes after plaintiff had been taken away to the Mankato Clinic, and shortly before the noon hour, H. B. Troost, a young doctor, entered the same room where plaintiff had met with her accident. Dr. Troost was called as a witness by plaintiff and, after preliminary questions stating time and place of entering, this occurred: " Mr. Weyl: "That is objected to as incompetent and immaterial, as to what happened when this doctor went in the front door; there is no showing yet [sic] it has any relation to the case." The objection was sustained, and plaintiff took an exception, and offered "to prove by this witness that about fifteen minutes before twelve on Feb. 13, 1933, and at the time when Mrs. Taylor was at the Mankato Clinic after she had been injured, he walked into the sales room of defendant's place of business, and within four or five feet after leaving the door his feet slipped out from under him; he caught himself without falling, but that the floor was wet and he slipped and nearly fell." Defendant interposed the objection to the offer that it was incompetent and immaterial. The court in sustaining the objection said: "I think you can prove any condition of the floor, but not anything else." The witness was permitted to state that the linoleum near the door was wet.
Was the offered testimony competent and material? For more than fifty years this court, in cases where the issue is dangerous or defective condition of an instrumentality or of a place, has held that it is competent and material to prove that others than plaintiff, when making use thereof, experienced effects of a similar nature to the one which befell plaintiff. It is sufficient to refer to the following cases: Phelps v. Winona & St. Peter R. Co., 37 Minn. 485, 35 N. W. 273, 5 Am. St. Rep. 867 (); Moehlenbrock v. Parke, Davis & Co., 141 Minn. 154, 169 N. W. 541; Id., 145 Minn. 100, 176 N. W. 169; Asplind v. Fred W. Pearce Corporation, 175 Minn. 445, 221 N. W. 679; Ellis v. Lindmark, 177 Minn. 390, 225 N. W. 395. It is true that such evidence is rejected in some jurisdictions; and that even in the same states the decisions appear not always consistent on this subject. Cases are annotated in 65 A. L. R. 380. A few of the many decisions in accord with the rule in this state are: District of Columbia v. Armes, 107 U. S. 519, 2 S. Ct. 840, 27 L. Ed. 618; Perrine v. Southern Bitulithic Co., 190 Ala. 96, 66 So. 705; City of Chicago v. Jarvis, 226 Ill. 614, 80 N. E. 1079; City of Lebanon v. Graves, 178 Ky. 749, 199 S. W. 1064, L. R. A. 1918B, 1016 (Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Loesch, 215 Ky. 452, 284 S. W. 1097, 47 A. L. R. 347, is not in conflict); Pullen v. City of Butte, 45 Mont. 46, 121 P. 878; Shugren v. Salt Lake City, 48 Utah, 320, 159 P. 530. Some cases make a distinction between testimony of similar experiences prior to the one in the suit and those occurring subsequently. But when the purpose is merely to show the dangerous condition of the instrumentality or place, there seems to be no reason why the one should not be given the same effect as the other. Of course, the occurrences subsequent to the one involved in the suit are not admissible for the purpose of bringing home notice of the danger or defect to the one charged with the proper condition of the instrumentality or the place causing the injury. In the following cases evidence of subsequent similar accidents was held competent, conditions remaining the same: City of Topeka v. Sherwood, 39 Kan. 690, 18 P. 933; Cook v. New Durham, 64 N. H....
To continue reading
Request your trial