Williams v. Boise Cascade Corp.
| Decision Date | 31 March 1986 |
| Parties | Laurice and Elizabeth WILLIAMS v. BOISE CASCADE CORPORATION. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Berman, Simmons & Goldberg, P.A., John F. Macri, (orally), John E. Sedgewick, Lewiston, for plaintiffs.
Hunt, Thompson & Bowie, James E. Bowie (orally), Portland, for defendant.
Before NICHOLS, ROBERTS, VIOLETTE, WATHEN, GLASSMAN and SCOLNIK, JJ.
Plaintiffs Laurice and Elizabeth Williams appeal from a judgment for defendant Boise Cascade Corporation entered upon a jury verdict in Superior Court (Oxford County). They argue inter alia that the court erred in failing to instruct the jury that defendant had a duty to warn plaintiff Laurice Williams about known or obvious dangers. We agree and we vacate the judgment.
Plaintiff Laurice Williams, a tradesman with a variety of experience, testified at trial that he was hired in June 1983 by Abington Constructors, Inc. to work as a millwright. Each year in July, defendant Boise Cascade Corp. shuts down its Rumford paper machines for two days to effect repairs and to install new equipment. Abington was awarded a contract to install braking devices during the July 1983 shutdown on the coater backing rolls of defendant's number 15 paper machine. Williams arrived at the Rumford mill at about 6:30 a.m. on July 4, 1983, ready to begin work. Williams said that he was assigned to work specifically on the brake job at about 9:00 or 9:30 that morning.
As he walked into the building that contained the number 15 machine, he noticed that the floor was wet and that the building was in darkness. The area immediately surrounding the site of the brake job was illuminated by a single spotlight. The shaft to which the braking device was to be attached sat atop a three-foot high concrete pad. Williams stepped up onto this pad to examine the shaft, which had to be removed so that the brake could be installed. He noticed some wet paper on the pad and removed it as he stepped up. He climbed down to get a tool and when he attempted to climb back up onto the pad, his foot slipped and he fell on his back and was injured.
Two Boise Cascade employees testified at trial that the floor around the concrete pad where Williams was injured was damp on the morning of July 4. One employee, the superintendent of machine number 15, said that the machine was usually hosed down with water once during each shift and cleaned more thoroughly during shutdowns. He testified that he saw no scraps of paper in the area where Williams was injured. The other Boise Cascade employee, a project engineer, testified that the building's main lighting system was shut off on July 4 and that contractors were responsible for providing their own lighting for their respective jobs. The jury found no negligence on the part of Boise Cascade and plaintiffs appeal from the verdict.
Plaintiffs argue that the court's instruction is prejudicial because it failed to inform the jury that Boise Cascade might have had a duty to warn Williams about known or obvious dangers within the mill or to take precautionary measures. Over plaintiffs' objection, the court paraphrased section 343A(1) of the Restatement (Second) of Torts and instructed the jury that "[a] building owner does not have a duty to warn a...
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