Title: Morrison-Knudsen Company v. Wingate

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Compton, Stephenson,
1 Lacy, Keenan, and 
Koontz, JJ., and Whiting, Senior Justice 
 
MORRISON-KNUDSEN  
COMPANY, INC., ET AL. 
                                        OPINION BY  
v.  Record No. 961606 
CHIEF JUSTICE HARRY L. CARRICO 
                                     September 12, 1997 
ALTON BRUCE WINGATE 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NEWPORT NEWS 
 
Robert W. Curran, Judge 
 
 
In this slip-and-fall case, a jury awarded the plaintiff, 
Alton Bruce Wingate, a verdict for $300,000 against the 
defendants, Morrison-Knudsen Company, Inc. and Eugene W. Kelsey & 
Son, Inc., a joint venture operating under the name of Kelsey & 
Associates.  The trial court entered judgment on the verdict, and 
we awarded the defendants an appeal.   
 
The plaintiff was injured when he slipped and fell on an 
outside stairway at Building 1949 in a housing complex at the 
Naval Weapons Station in Yorktown.  Building 1949 was one of 36 
two-story buildings containing a total of 232 housing units for 
which the defendants were awarded a construction contract by the 
United States Navy Department in 1981.  Pursuant to the contract, 
the defendants acted as architect and designer as well as general 
contractor for the project, including the exterior stairways. 
 
Building 1949 was the first structure erected, and it was 
used as a prototype for the remaining thirty-five buildings.  The 
second-floor units in each building were reached by an exterior 
stairway in the shape of a "Y," with the leg of the "Y" joined to 
                     
     
1Justice Stephenson participated in the hearing and decision 
of this case prior to the effective date of his retirement on 
July 1, 1997. 
the arms by a landing located approximately one-third of the way 
up the stairs. 
 
The original shop drawings for the prototype stairway 
specified a "steel trowel finish" for the precast concrete treads 
and landing, meaning that the finish would be "relatively 
smooth," and the treads and the landing on the stairway in 
Building 1949 were finished in this manner.  However, after 
Building 1949 was completed, "the Navy . . . decided [it] wanted 
broom finish instead of steel-trowel finish" on the stair treads, 
and a change order was issued directing the replacement of 
"[s]tair treads at Bldg. 1949."  A note on the change order 
stated that the "[o]riginal stair treads were smooth [and should] 
have been rough texture."  The change order made no mention of 
the landing on the stairway in Building 1949.  
 
The stair treads in Building 1949 were replaced with treads 
having a "broom finish," meaning that "you still trowel [the 
concrete], and then you run a broom over it to get a slight 
texture."
2  C.H. Morgan, the framing subcontractor who originally 
erected the prototype stairway, was employed to do the 
replacement work.  He asked a representative of the defendants 
why the landing was not being replaced and was told that the 
surface of the landing would be roughened by application of an 
epoxy material.  However, the finish on the landing was still 
smooth when he examined it some time later. 
 
The plaintiff was employed by a private commercial firm to 
                     
     
2A broom finish was used on the treads and landings on the 
stairways of the remaining 35 buildings in the housing complex.  
perform maintenance work at the housing complex after it was 
completed.  On August 14, 1984, he had been working in a second-
floor unit of Building 1949 when it began to rain.  Walking 
briskly down the stairway to raise the windows on his van, he 
slipped on the wet landing and fell to the bottom of the stairs, 
suffering the injuries for which he sought damages in the action 
filed below.  He examined the landing the day after he fell and 
found it was composed of "real smooth concrete," unlike the 
"rough, broom-finished concrete" on the steps. 
 
On appeal, the defendants argue that actionable negligence 
requires proof of a legal duty to exercise ordinary care for the 
safety of another person, a breach of that duty, and an injury 
proximately resulting from the breach.  The defendants say that 
the plaintiff was required to establish by the use of expert 
testimony what duty they owed him as designers and general 
contractors, yet the plaintiff failed to produce such expert 
testimony.  Furthermore, the defendants submit, there was no 
showing that they breached any duty they owed the plaintiff; he 
produced no evidence to show that the trowel finish was unfit or 
unsafe for use on an exterior landing or that the trowel finish 
constituted a defect in the premises.  Hence, the defendants 
conclude, their motions to strike and for summary judgment, made 
below, should have been granted. 
 
The plaintiff responds that expert testimony was not 
required to establish the defendants' duty because this is a case 
"in which the facts and circumstances are within the common 
understanding and experience of the average lay juror."  The 
plaintiff maintains that "[f]or a proper statement of the duty 
owed to a person injured by a defective condition created by a 
contractor, the court must look to tort law and apply the 
objective standard of the reasonably prudent man." 
 
Here, the plaintiff says, there was "ample evidence from 
which the jury could conclude that [the defendants] failed to use 
ordinary care in creating and failing to repair the condition 
that caused [the plaintiff's] injury."  The evidence showed, the 
plaintiff submits, that the defendants failed to use ordinary 
care "in (1) designing a stairway composed of a smooth concrete 
surface exposed to the weather, (2) replacing all but one surface 
when the owner rejected it as too smooth, and (3) failing to 
perform the repair they arranged for (application of epoxy)."   
Hence, the plaintiff concludes, the trial court did not err in 
refusing to grant the defendants' motions to strike and for 
summary judgment. 
 
For purposes of this discussion, we will assume, without 
deciding, that the plaintiff is correct in his assertion that 
expert testimony was not required to prove what duty the 
defendants owed him, and we will agree with the plaintiff that 
the defendants owed him the duty of ordinary care.  Yet, there 
remained upon the plaintiff the burden of showing a breach of 
that duty by producing evidence of a non-expert nature 
establishing that the smooth finish on the landing in the 
stairway of Building 1949 constituted what the plaintiff calls "a 
hazardous condition . . .  created by [the defendants] which they 
failed to repair." 
 
We are of opinion that the plaintiff failed to carry his 
burden.  Indeed, at best, the plaintiff's evidence may be 
described as sketchy.  He cites the testimony of the defendants' 
quality control officer that there is no custom in the building 
industry concerning broom-finished versus trowel-finished 
concrete.  The plaintiff also cites the testimony of the 
defendants' project manager to the effect that he was unfamiliar 
with building code requirements.  The plaintiff then argues that 
if the defendants could have shown that they had complied with 
applicable industry standards or building codes, "they would have 
done so." 
 
The difficulty with this argument is that the burden was not 
upon the defendants to show that they complied with industry 
standards or building codes, if any were applicable.  Rather, the 
burden was upon the plaintiff to show that the defendants  
deviated from the standard of ordinary care, either by failing to 
observe applicable trade customs and building code provisions or 
by some other defalcation.  
 
The plaintiff also cites an "acknowledgement" by the 
defendants' quality control officer that broom-finished stair 
treads "give you more traction" than smooth-finished treads, 
especially in damp "climates such as you have in Yorktown," and 
that if he were building the stairs and landings, he would prefer 
a "real light broom finish."  Further, the plaintiff cites a 
statement by the defendants' project manager to the effect that 
he did not know why the Navy requested the change to broom-
finished treads "other than that they wanted the stair treads to 
be rougher." 
 
However, all that this evidence establishes is the obvious: 
broom-finished concrete provides a rougher surface with better 
traction than smooth-finished concrete.  It does not prove that a 
smooth finish is inherently unsafe or unfit for use on an 
exterior landing.  Simply because one method of finishing 
concrete may be better or preferable to another does not mean 
that the other is necessarily unacceptable or that its use would 
constitute negligence under circumstances similar to those 
present here. 
 
Next, the plaintiff cites the testimony of C.H. Morgan, the 
framing subcontractor who originally erected the prototype 
stairway and later replaced the treads pursuant to the change 
order.  Morgan stated that in his forty years of building 
experience, he had never seen smooth-finished concrete used in a 
public area.   
 
But Morgan's "business, . . . on this particular project, 
was to do carpentry and framing and trim work."  He had never 
participated in the design of concrete forms or concrete 
structures, had no expertise in concrete, and was only generally 
familiar with what concrete finishes are used on common walkways 
and areas.  While he found the use of smooth-finished concrete in 
a public area unusual, he did not question its use on the 
prototype stairway.  And the fact that one person may never have 
seen smooth-finished concrete used in a public area does not make 
its use in this particular case a breach of the duty to use 
ordinary care.  
 
Finally, the plaintiff puts great emphasis upon the change 
order requiring replacement of the treads on the prototype 
stairway because the "[o]riginal stair treads were smooth [and 
should] have been rough texture."  The plaintiff says that the 
defendants prepared the plans and specifications for the 
prototype stairway, which allowed the use of smooth-finished 
concrete, that "[t]he Navy rejected the plans and ordered them 
changed," and that the defendants complied with respect to all 
the buildings in the housing project except Building 1949.  "In 
other words," the plaintiff states, "these were [the defendants'] 
own plans, [they] were not approved but rejected and not followed 
as modified."  
 
However, there is nothing in the record to justify the view 
that the Navy ever "rejected" the use of smooth-finished concrete 
on the treads and landing in the stairway of Building 1949.  
Rather, the evidence shows that the original plans and 
specifications were approved and that the stairway was erected 
with smooth-finished concrete in accordance with those plans and 
specifications.  Only later did the Navy indicate that it 
"wanted" the smooth treads replaced by treads with a rough 
finish.  The change order was then issued and the treads were 
replaced.  This goes to prove nothing more than that the Navy 
changed its mind about the type of finish it wanted on the stair 
treads in Building 1949. 
 
Furthermore, the change order made no mention of the landing 
in question.  Therefore, the order cannot be construed, as the 
plaintiff would have us construe it, as imposing upon the 
defendants an obligation to "follow" the order by replacing not 
only the stair treads but also the landing with broom-finished 
concrete.   
 
We are not unmindful of the maxim that, "on appeal, a 
litigant who is fortified by a jury's verdict and a trial court's 
judgment thereon 'occupies the most favored position known to the 
law.'"  Virginia & Maryland R.R. v. White, 228 Va. 140, 145, 319 
S.E.2d 755, 758 (1984) (quoting Pugsley v. Privette, 220 Va. 892, 
901, 263 S.E.2d 69, 76 (1980)).  But it is the duty of this Court 
to set aside a jury verdict, even though approved by the trial 
court, when it is not supported by evidence and could only have 
been reached through speculation and conjecture.  Wagman v. 
Boccheciampe, 206 Va. 412, 418, 143 S.E.2d 907, 911 (1965).  
 
Here, the plaintiff failed to establish that the use by the 
defendants of smooth-finished concrete on the landing in question 
constituted a defect or a hazardous, unsafe, or unfit condition 
which the defendants were bound to repair.  Therefore, the jury's 
verdict finding that the defendants breached their duty of 
ordinary care is not supported by evidence and could only have 
been reached through speculation and conjecture.  Accordingly, we 
will reverse the judgment of the trial court, set the jury 
verdict aside, and enter final judgment here in favor of the 
defendants. 
 
Reversed and final judgment.