Case Title: Branstetter v. Robbins

Citation: 178 Kan. 8, 283 P.2d 455

Docket Number: 39,534

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1955-05-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
178 Kan. 8 (1955)
283 P.2d 455
VERNA BRANSTETTER, Appellant and Cross-Appellee,
v.
RICHARD W. ROBBINS and EDWARD ROBBINS, doing business as Robbins Ranch; RICHARD W. ROBBINS and EDWARD ROBBINS, Appellees and Cross-Appellants.
No. 39,534

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed May 7, 1955.
Clarence N. Holeman, of Wichita, argued the cause, and W.A. Kahrs, Robert H. Nelson, Wilbur D. Geeding, and Thomas E. Woods, all of Wichita, and *9 John W. Graue, of Greensburg, were with him on the briefs for the appellant and cross-appellee.
W.D. Jochems, and J. Wirth Sargent, both of Wichita, argued the cause, and David J. Wilson and E. Keith Beard, both of Meade, Emmett A. Blaes, of Wichita, and Martin Aelmore, of Greensburg, were with them on the briefs for the appellees and cross-appellants.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
ROBB, J.:
This appeal was taken from the trial court's order sustaining appellees' demurrer to the first and second causes of action set out in appellant's petition. A cross appeal has been filed by the appellees from another order of the trial court, which refused appellees the right to take depositions of certain witnesses, including the appellant.
The petition of the appellant, which was filed in the court below on July 23, 1953, omitting formal parts, for the first and second causes of action alleged as follows:
"SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION.
A demurrer was filed to this petition on the grounds that the petition did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action in favor of appellant and against these appellees. The demurrer was argued and sustained on March 3, 1954, and the appellant has appealed from that order. Notice of appeal was served on March 4, 1954.
Appellant in her two specifications of error complains that the *11 court erred in sustaining defendants' demurrer to plaintiff's first cause of action and in sustaining defendants' demurrer to plaintiff's second cause of action.
The principle to be determined by this appeal is whether the facts pleaded in the petition sufficiently state a cause of action by reason of a demurrer having been lodged against it. The rule of liberal construction must be applied in this case since there were no motions filed whereby the rule of strict construction could be invoked. Therefore, the first question presented is whether any negligence on the part of appellees was pleaded by the appellant.
Appellant cites the case of Moore v. Parker, 63 Kan. 52, 64 Pac. 975, wherein it was pleaded that the platform of a well, the only source of water supply, collapsed because the landlord had used defective and unsafe sleepers or stringers in the construction and had covered them with a wood platform or planks; the landlord knew and negligently, fraudulently and carelessly concealed this knowledge from the tenant and also his wife, who was injured; the defects were not obvious and could not be discovered by the exercise of ordinary care; and the defective sleepers and stringers gave way, precipitating the tenant's wife into the well, whereby she sustained personal injuries. These facts were all set out in the petition, which was held sufficient as against a demurrer. The court in that case set out the applicable rule of law, as follows:
At page 55 of the same opinion the court quoted Wood on Landlord and Tenant as follows:
In the same type of case as the Moore case, our court in Bailey v. Kelly, 86 Kan. 911, 122 Pac. 1027, at first reversed the trial court's order which had sustained a demurrer to the evidence. However, *12 upon a later presentation of the case (93 Kan. 723, 145 Pac. 556), the rule in the first case was reversed and the trial court was ordered to sustain the demurrer to plaintiff's evidence. The facts in the Bailey case, as set out in the syllabus in 93 Kan. 723, were as follows:
All three of these cases put the landlord's liability to a tenant on the basis of whether the defect was latent or patent. The general rule is stated in 32 Am. Jur., Landlord and Tenant, § 652, p. 514, as follows:
In the same authority in § 672, p. 542-543, we find:
...............
In 52 C.J.S., Landlord and Tenant, § 417 (3), p. 15-16, we find:
Appellant cites cases where dynamite, blasting powder, and solidified glycerin were involved, but we can see no resemblance between those cases and our case, which involves barnyard spray. We will, therefore, not set out those cases in this opinion. While we are on the subject of a dangerous or deadly commodity, however, we are constrained to hold that barnyard spray, also known as DDT, is in the same category as poisoned wheat, rat poison, and insect killers, and not in the class with dynamite, which is commonly known to be dangerous and deadly. A high degree of care is placed upon anyone who handles, stores or keeps an explosive, but barnyard spray is not an explosive. We cannot agree with appellant that the presence of barnyard spray is so unusual on a farm premises that a normal person would not expect to find it in a food cabinet. The petition does not tell us anything about the amount of barnyard spray, what form it was in, or if it was in a container. Its presence in a food cabinet could certainly be expected by a majority, if not by all, householders because vermin and insects are attracted to a food cabinet, a larder, or pantry. The appellant alleged in her petition that she herself found the spray in the cabinet "after receiving the injury," but nothing is alleged to show that she couldn't *14 have discovered the spray prior to her injury or at the time she first moved in. She said nothing about the spray having been mislabeled or so concealed that part of the cabinet had to be torn out or removed before the spray could be discovered, as was the situation in the Moore case. It was not alleged that appellees, or anyone on their behalf, did anything to keep appellant from discovering the spray before, as well as after, she received the injury. Appellant also failed to state whether or how the spray got into her eyes or her blood stream. The fact that she has lost her eyesight at her age is lamentable but an injury, coupled with the mere presence of a substance that might have caused such an injury, is not sufficient to constitute a cause of action, following the rule set out in Miller v. Gabbert, 154 Kan. 260, 118 P.2d 523, where a demurrer to the evidence was ordered sustained. The rule there stated was:
Under appellant's own allegations the mere presence of the spray was a patent defect which could have been as easily discovered by her as by the appellees.
In view of the authorities cited and what has been said, we believe appellant's first cause of action was not sufficient and without it the second cause of action must necessarily fail. It is not necessary to cite the numerous authorities to the effect that a cause of action for exemplary or punitive damages standing alone in a petition is not sufficient. The trial court properly sustained the demurrer to both the first and second causes of action.
The cross-appeal in this case presents an interesting question but in view of the ruling on the demurrer, this court does not feel that it is necessary to dwell on this point.
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.