Wood v. Walgreen Drug Stores
| Decision Date | 07 March 1939 |
| Docket Number | No. 24914.,24914. |
| Citation | 125 S.W.2d 534 |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
| Parties | WOOD v. WALGREEN DRUG STORES, Inc. |
Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Max G. Baron, Judge.
"Not to be reported in State Reports."
Action by Jean Wood against the Walgreen Drug Stores, Inc., for damages for personal injuries claimed to have been sustained by plaintiff while a customer in defendant's drug store. From an order sustaining plaintiff's motion for a new trial after verdict for defendant, defendant appeals.
Order affirmed.
Strubinger, Tudor & Tombrink, of St. Louis, for appellant.
Eagleton, Waechter, Elam & Clark, of St. Louis, for respondent.
BENNICK, Commissioner.
This is an action for damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff when she was caused to slip and fall while a customer in defendant's drug store which is located on the northeast corner of Eighth Street and Washington Avenue, in the City of St. Louis. Upon a trial to a jury, a verdict of ten jurors was returned in favor of defendant. The court thereupon sustained plaintiff's motion for a new trial upon the ground, among others, that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence; and from the order so entered, defendant's appeal to this court has followed in the usual course.
In the center of defendant's store, closely adjacent to its soda fountain, are a number of tables at which its customers may sit while being served sandwiches, drinks, and the like.
On the day in question plaintiff entered the store and took her seat at one of the tables which she found unoccupied at the moment. As she sat down she had occasion to notice that "the floor around the table was clean". However the table itself had not as yet "been cleared from the time the last person had been sitting there", and had upon it, in addition to the dishes, silverware, and crumpled paper napkins, "some fragments of bread and a little water" that "had been spilled on top of the table". The largest fragment of bread was "about as large as a quarter" and the "thickness of a sandwich slice", while the remaining fragments were "just crumbs", apparently not large enough to be of any special consequence.
After plaintiff had taken her seat, one of defendant's waitresses came over to her and began to clear off the table preparatory to taking plaintiff's order. The waitress stacked up the dishes and silverware; gathered up the soiled paper napkins; and then undertook to brush the bread crumbs off upon a plate which she held underneath the edge of the table, but in doing so permitted "some of the pieces of bread" to miss the plate and fall upon the floor. She then took plaintiff's order for a Coca-Cola, which plaintiff drank while seated at the table.
Plaintiff testified that from the time she first took her seat at the table until she started to leave no one passed by the table other than the waitress who had served her.
When plaintiff finished drinking her Coca-Cola, she arose from the table, picked up her bundles, "and started to make a step out into the aisle and then another step forward". As she did so, her right heel slipped upon the floor, causing her to fall backward in a sitting position with both legs extended out in front of her.
After plaintiff had regained her composure, she examined her shoe to see what had caused her to fall, and "found a piece of bread" which was still "around her heel" and retained the mark of the heel in it after she had removed it from her shoe. It was "cupped up over the edge of the heel", and was "right moist". It was a "wet piece of bread", but "not crust". "The manager came over and saw it"; took the piece of bread from plaintiff and "put it in his pocket"; and after plaintiff had "remained around there a little while", she left the store unassisted and took a bus for her home.
The charge of negligence relied upon by plaintiff, as to which defendant joined answer by a general denial, was that while plaintiff was an invitee in defendant's store and was walking over the floor thereof, she stepped upon a piece of bread, and was thereby caused to slip and...
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