Case Title: FW Woolworth Co. v. Stokes

Citation: 191 So. 2d 411

Docket Number: 

State: mississippi

Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Date: 1966-11-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
191 So. 2d 411 (1966) F.W. WOOLWORTH CO., Defendant-Appellant, v. Mrs. Myrtis STOKES, Plaintiff-Appellee. No. 44049. Supreme Court of Mississippi. October 17, 1966. Suggestion of Error Overruled November 14, 1966. *412 Dent, Ward, Martin & Terry, Vicksburg, for appellant. Harry R. Allen, Brunini, Everett, Grantham & Quin, Vicksburg, for appellee. PATTERSON, Justice: This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of Warren County wherein judgment was rendered for the plaintiff in the sum of $5900. The suit was brought for injuries alleged to have been sustained when the plaintiff slipped and fell on the floor of appellant's store. Plaintiff's charge of negligence against the defendant, in substance, is that on the day she fell it had rained heavily for a considerable time, and the defendant knew or, by the exercise of reasonable care, should have known that customers would bring water into the store on their wearing apparel which would create a slippery condition on the floor hazardous to its customers; that nevertheless, the defendant negligently allowed water to accumulate on the floor of its premises with both actual and constructive notice of its slippery condition prior to plaintiff's fall. The defendant admitted in its answer that plaintiff fell while walking in the aisle of its store. It admitted the heavy rainfall and admitted that since it was Christmas Eve day, there were many customers who came into the store. It further admitted that these customers brought water into the store on their clothes, umbrellas, and shoes. It denied, however, that it had either actual or constructive notice of the presence of the puddle of water on the floor in which plaintiff slipped, and contended that it had used reasonable care to keep its floors in a reasonably safe condition for the use of its customers. It charged the plaintiff with contributory negligence in "failing to use ordinary care in not observing and stepping in the water, if any, on defendant's floor under the circumstances and weather conditions existing." As a further affirmative defense, defendant charges the plaintiff *413 with assumption of risk, alleging "that the danger of slipping in the puddle of water on defendant's floor as described in the declaration, if any there was on the floor, was open, obvious, and within the knowledge of plaintiff and was fully known to plaintiff and well appreciated by her; that plaintiff in stepping in said puddle of water assumed the risk and danger of so doing." The record reflects that Christmas Eve day of 1962 was one of intermittent rainfall, it having rained almost continuously from 1:00 in the morning until 7:50 that evening. On this date plaintiff and her husband were Chirstmas shopping in the city of Vicksburg. They arrived at appellant's store at approximately 11:30 in the morning and shopped therein for about thirty or forty minutes before going to the lunch counter which was located in the front section of the store. The counter was crowded and the plaintiff and her husband had to wait for several minutes in order to find seats together for lunch. They were finally seated in the last two seats of the counter, that is, the two seats furthest removed from the north entrance to the store. They finished their lunch at about 1:00 p.m. and walked back along the counter from where they had been served to another part of the store to resume their shopping. At the jewelry counter plaintiff discovered that she had left her scarf at the lunch counter and returned to retrieve it. When she reached the end of the lunch counter nearest the front of the store, her foot slipped in a puddle of water causing her to fall. She was helped to her feet and rejoined her husband who had not accompanied her to obtain the scarf. Plaintiff reported the accident to the store manager and showed him the puddle of water in which she had slipped and fallen, whereupon the manager mopped the floor in the area of the fall. This area was approximately three feet from the lunch counter and from six to ten feet from the front entrance, though the entrance was separated from the lunch counter by a rail, and additionally, there was an ice cream freezer and a mechanical riding horse between the front entrance and the spot where the plaintiff fell. The defendant's store manager testified that Christmas Eve was one of the busiest days of the year for the defendant and that he was aware that it had been raining intermittently all day. He further testified that the floor was of vinyl and that it was slippery when wet; that he knew water was being tracked into the store. As a matter of precaution, since water was being tracked into the store by the customers, he had placed a waste can at the entrance to the store in which customers could put their umbrellas; mops were available and were used in the store by the manager and other employees during the day to clean up water which was tracked in. He testified, however, that the defendant did not use Feldspar, an anti-slip compound, nor place rubber mats on the floor. The assistant manager of the store testified that it was his general duty to supervise the floor and to see that it was kept clean, "and since it was raining that day to be sure that as much of the water as possible would be kept off the floor." He testified that both he and the cleanup boy mopped water from the floor at intervals of approximately fifteen minutes, and though the area of the lunch counter was under his specific supervision, he doubted he was there during the lunch hour, since it was his lunch hour also. The appellee was a regular customer of Woolworth, the defendant, as she had traded there for a number of years. She was acquainted with many of the personnel of the store, including the manager, the assistant manager, and both regular floor supervisors. She testified that the area in which she slipped was within her view during the time that she and her husband were at the lunch counter, and that she did not see anyone mop this area during that time. The appellant assigns as error (1) the trial court's overruling appellant's motion for a directed verdict at the close of appellee's *414 testimony, (2) the trial court's refusing appellant's request for a peremptory instruction at the conclusion of all the testimony, (3) the trial court's overruling appellant's motion for a judgment n.o.v. or in the alternative for a new trial, and (4) the trial court's refusing two instructions requested by the appellant with reference to notice, either actual or constructive, of the presence of the puddle of water on the floor. The thrust of the defendant's assignments of error and argument is that the defendant had no notice, either actual or implied, of the water upon the floor in which the plaintiff slipped and fell. In support of this contention he cites Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Tisdale, 185 So. 2d 916 (Miss. 1966) in which we quoted with approval the following language in Mississippi Winn-Dixie Supermarkets, Inc. v. Hughes, 247 Miss. 575, 584, 156 So. 2d 734, 736 (1963): In the Sears case we said further: See also Williamson v. F.W. Woolworth Co., 237 Miss. 141, 112 So. 2d 529 (1959), as well as numerous authorities from other jurisdictions. This theory, lack of notice, was urged by the defendant in its motions for a directed verdict at the close of appellee's testimony, for a peremptory instruction at the conclusion of all the testimony, for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and as the basis for two instructions with reference to notice, all of which were overruled by the trial court. The plaintiff's theory of the case, as pressed upon us, is founded upon circumstances which were such as to create a reasonable probability that a dangerous condition existed in the area of the lunch counter and that the defendant, with knowledge of the condition, or a reasonable probability that such a condition existed, did not exercise due care in order to minimize the risk of harm to appellee. In short, the plaintiff maintains that the real issue is whether ordinary care was used to remedy a condition known to exist. She contends further that the issue of whether ordinary care was used by the defendant to remedy a hazardous condition known to exist is a factual one for determination by a jury. The cited cases correctly state the rule of law that notice, either actual or constructive, to a store proprietor of a hazardous floor condition on the premises is essential before there can be liability on his part. Our prior decisions relating to notice of foreign objects or obstacles on a floor which created a hazardous condition, such as a gum ball in Tisdale, supra, dry vermicelli in Hughes, supra, and a banana peel in Williamson, supra, are illustrative of this point. These cases, however, do not fall within the shadow of the facts established here. The present suit is more analogous to that pronounced in 62 A.L.R.2d 6, 33 (1958) as follows: As indicated, before there can be liability on the part of the proprietor of a store or similar place of business, there must be proof of actual knowledge of the condition or proof that the hazardous floor condition existed for such a length of time that the proprietor in the exercise of ordinary care should have known of it. The importance of the time factor in relation to constructive notice is thus very clear. All courts are in accord that the proprietor is not an insurer of its invitees, and this uniformity is extended to the universal exclusion of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in suits to recover for injuries sustained by falls on floors which are alleged to have been made slippery by the presence of water, mud, or snow thereon. This Court recognized these principles in Wallace v. J.C. Penney, Co., Inc., 236 Miss. 367, 375-378, 109 So. 2d 876, 879-880 (1959) wherein we stated: The case of S.S. Kresge v. Fader, 116 Ohio St. 718, 158 N.E. 174, 58 A.L.R. *416 132 (1927), cited in Wallace, supra, is perhaps the leading case to the effect that proprietors of businesses are not insurers against accidents of this nature and that it is not the defendant's duty to keep a large force of moppers immediately inside the entranceway to mop rain water as fast as it blows in or is tracked in by wet feet. The Kresge case held that the business proprietor owes only the duty to exercise ordinary care for the protection of customers against injury while in the store and that a floor with no defect, i.e., it was level, properly constructed and surfaced, the only impairment of its safe condition being rain water thereon, which was either blown in or carried in on the feet of incoming customers does not create such a hazardous condition that plaintiff could recover. The reason for the above rule was stated in the following language in the Kresge case: Recovery was disallowed in Kresge under the theory, as we interpret the decision, of assumption of risk by the plaintiff. It will be noted, however, that in the Wallace case the theories expressed in Kresge, supra, were not adopted in toto but were limited to the conditions prevailing in Wallace. In Wallace we said: Though Kresge, supra, is persuasive, and Wallace, supra, would be authoritative, if under similar facts, it being within our jurisdiction, we are of the opinion that both should be rejected as being dispositive of the issues here, since in neither of the above cases had the proprietor undertaken steps to correct the hazardous situations. This leads directly to the crux of this lawsuit, and that is: Is it necessary for a plaintiff in a suit of this nature to prove notice of the existence of a specific puddle of water in which a slip occurs when the store owner has knowledge of the general and continuous hazardous condition of his floor caused by water dripping from the wearing apparel of his customers, or is he relieved of this burden of proof by the proprietor's knowledge of the condition, which knowledge is made self-evident by his actions taken to correct the same? If the latter is answered in the affirmative, is not the remaining issue whether or not the steps taken to correct the hazardous situation were reasonable or negligent under the existing circumstances, and also is this not an issue for the jury's determination? We are of the opinion that when plaintiff has shown that the circumstances were such as to create a reasonable probability that the dangerous condition would occur, he need not also prove actual or constructive notice of the specific condition, in this instance a specific puddle of water. Bozza v. Vornado, Inc., 42 N.J. 355, 200 A.2d 777 (1964); Jacobson v. Yoken's, Inc., 104 N.H. 331, 186 A.2d 148 (1962); Torda v. Grand Union Co., 59 N.J. Super. 41, 157 A.2d 133 (1959); F. *417 W. Woolworth Co. v. Bland, 357 Mo. 339, 208 S.W.2d 263 (1948); Flora v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 330 Pa. 166, 198 A. 663 (1939); Lyle v. Megerle, 270 Ky. 227, 109 S.W.2d 598 (1936). The plaintiff proved she was an invitee in the defendant's store; she proved the intermittent rainfall on this particular day; she proved that she slipped and fell on the defendant's floor and was injured as a result thereof. The defendant admitted the rainfall; it admitted the slippery condition of the floor; it admitted that it had taken steps to correct the same, but denied knowledge of this particular puddle of water. These facts are similar to those in Shiflett v. M. Timberlake, Inc., 205 Va. 406, 409, 137 S.E.2d 908, 911-912 (1964) wherein the following statements are found: See also Huttinger v. G.C. Murphy Co., 131 Ind. App. 642, 172 N.E.2d 74 (1961) and Robertson Bros. Dept. Store v. Stanley, 228 Ind. 372, 90 N.E.2d 809 (1950). We are of the opinion that Shiflett announces the better rule of law in regard *418 to an invitee who falls on a floor made slippery by moisture tracked in by customers during inclement weather, and that the liability, if any, of the storekeeper turns on whether, under the circumstances, he has exercised ordinary care to prevent a hazardous condition on his premises or, if there was knowledge of such condition, whether he exercised ordinary care to correct the same. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court properly left this question to the jury for its determination. The final assignment of error, relating to the refusal of the court to grant defendant's instructions with reference to notice, is disposed of by the foregoing conclusions of the court, and in view thereof we find no merit in this assignment. We are of the opinion that the cause should be affirmed. Affirmed. GILLESPIE, P.J., and RODGERS, BRADY, and SMITH, JJ., concur.