Ware v. Evangelical Baptist Benevolent & Missionary Soc. of Boston

• Decision Date: 19 May 1902
• Citation: 181 Mass. 285,63 N.E. 885
• Parties: WARE v. EVANGELICAL BAPTIST BENEVOLENT & MISSIONARY SOC. OF BOSTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

181 Mass. 285

63 N.E. 885

WARE v. EVANGELICAL BAPTIST BENEVOLENT & MISSIONARY SOC. OF BOSTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

May 19, 1902

COUNSEL

Williams & Copeland, for plaintiff.

R. W Nason and T. W. Proctor, for defendant.

OPINION

MORTON J.

This is an action of tort to recover for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff through the alleged negligence of the defendant. At the conclusion of the plaintiff's evidence the defendant asked the court to rule that the plaintiff could not recover and to direct a verdict for the defendant. The court did not rule as thus requested, though expressing the opinion that the action could not be maintained. But it was agreed instead by the parties, after conference with the court, that the case should be submitted to the jury, and if the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff the case should be reported to the supreme judicial court, and, if that court was of opinion that a verdict ought to have been directed for the defendant, judgment was to be so entered. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the case is here as thus stipulated.

The injury complained of was due to a fall received by the plaintiff while passing from one of the rooms in the Tremont Temple Building, so called, in Boston, belonging to the defendant, to the hallway or corridor on which the room opened. The floor of the room was 4 7/8 inches above the floor of the hallway, and it was this difference in height which caused the plaintiff, as she stepped forward out of the room, to fall. She had entered the room a few minutes before through the same door. She had never been in the building previously, if that is material. It is contended that this construction was defective, and this is the negligence alleged. It is matter of common observation that in entering and leaving stores, halls, railway car stations and platforms, office buildings, and other buildings and places and private houses, adjoining surfaces are frequently at different levels; and the difference in level has to be overcome by one or more steps, of greater or less height, or by some other device. The same thing happens in the interior of buildings and structures. We cannot think that such a construction is of itself defective or negligent. There is nothing in the nature of things which requires that the floor of a room which is entered from a hall or corridor especially in a building...