Title: McHenry v. HOWELLS ET UX.

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Affirmed June 30, 1954.
*699 Orval Thompson, of Albany, argued the cause for appellant. On the brief were Mark V. Weatherford and Sam Kyle, of Albany.
George H. Fraser, of Portland, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Warren A. McMinimee, of Tillamook, and Cleveland C. Cory and Patricia A. Young, of Portland.
Before LATOURETTE, Chief Justice, and LUSK, BRAND and TOOZE, Justices.
AFFIRMED.
TOOZE, J.
This is an action to recover damages for personal injuries suffered as the result of alleged negligence, brought by plaintiff Georgia McHenry against Horace W. Howells and Jane Howells, his wife, as defendants. The trial court sustained defendants' motion for an involuntary nonsuit and dismissed the action. Plaintiff appeals.
Plaintiff resides at Corvallis, Oregon. She is the mother of the defendant Jane Howells. On Monday, February 4, 1951, plaintiff went to Toledo in an automobile driven by her husband. Defendant Jane Howells picked up her mother at Toledo and took her to the Howells home in Newport for a social visit of several days.
Defendants built their Newport home in 1946, but in 1949 or 1950, they remodeled it. At that time a stairway from the first to the second floor was constructed. The steps of the stairway were built of knotty pine wood and were of natural color. They were as wide as ordinary steps and had a rise of approximately seven inches. The siding of the stairway *700 was covered with light-colored wall board. The wall-to-wall carpet in the hall at the bottom of the stairway was dark red. The door at the bottom of the stairway was opposite a window covered with heavy drapes, and this door opened outward toward a bedroom. The bottom of the door was constructed flush with the top of the first step.
Lighting was available to the stairway from three sources: (1) outdoor light from a window directly opposite the stairway door; (2) electric lamps in a den which opened into the hall; and (3) an electric light in the attic at the top of the stairway.
This stairway was the scene of plaintiff's mishap on Thursday morning, February 8, 1951. On previous visits to her daughter's home, she had been up and down the stairs a half dozen times, more or less, without any difficulty, but on this particular visit she had not had occasion to use the stairway prior to the accident.
Just prior to the accident, plaintiff had decided to assist her daughter by doing some ironing while her daughter was absent from the house. She had ascended the stairs to see if the clothes hanging in the attic were sufficiently dry to be ironed. Some of her own wearing apparel was included. Taking a few of the articles on her arm, intending to return later with a clothes basket to get the remainder, plaintiff started down the stairs. The stairway door was open. While descending the stairs she had reached the second step from the bottom and from appearances being impressed that it was the bottom step, she stepped forward thinking she was stepping out on the floor, when in fact she was two steps up. As a result, she suffered a bad fall, causing the personal injuries of which she complains.
*701 1. Upon the express invitation of defendants, plaintiff was a social guest in their home, enjoying their hospitality. No element of business was connected with her visit in the home, and hence, she was in no sense a "business invitee", as that term is defined in the law of negligence. Her status was that of a licensee, and the duty owed to her by defendants was the duty owed by an owner, possessor, or occupant of land to a licensee. The authorities are quite uniform in so holding. Some difficulty has been experienced by the courts in classifying the status of a social guest. In an exhaustive note in 25 ALR2d 598, 600, the author says:
In 38 Am Jur 778, Negligence, § 117, it is stated:
2, 3. In 65 CJS 495, Negligence, § 35d, it is said:
4-6. The defendants owed plaintiff the duty to use reasonable care not to injure her through any affirmative or active negligence on their part, as distinguished from passive negligence. They also owed her the *703 duty of not willfully, wantonly, or intentionally inflicting injury upon her. As to plaintiff, defendants were subject to the rule of law that liability of an owner or occupant of premises to a licensee may be predicated upon negligence in leaving something in the nature of a trap or pitfall at a place where his presence might have been anticipated, without a warning thereof. "A `trap', within the meaning of this rule, is a danger which a person who does not know the premises could not avoid by reasonable care and skill." 65 CJS 503, Negligence, § 38.
7. In 65 CJS 503, Negligence, § 38, it is further said:
As to the duty owed by an owner or occupant of premises to a licensee, the holdings of this court have *704 been in accord with the rules above stated. In Lange v. St. Johns Lumber Co., 115 Or 337, 348, 237 P 696, we said:
See also Akerson v. D.C. Bates & Sons, Inc., 180 Or 224, 227, 174 P2d 953; Napier v. First Cong. Church, 157 Or 110, 113, 70 P2d 43; Massey v. Seller, 45 Or 267, 275, 77 P 397, 16 Am Neg Rep 553.
8. Plaintiff's status as a licensee was in no way changed by the fact that at the time of the accident she was engaged in performing a service for her daughter. One who enters a home as a social guest will not escape the liabilities of that status merely by performing incidental services beneficial to the host in the course of the visit. Gudwin v. Gudwin, 14 Conn Supp 147; O'Brien v. Shea, 326 Mass 681, 96 NE2d 163.
The law applicable to the facts in the instant case is fully discussed in the ALR note appended to the the case of Laube v. Stevenson, 137 Conn. 469, 78 A2d 693, 25 ALR 592, 598. The clear weight of authority supports our position. Also see Note, 92 ALR 1002, 1005; Note, 12 ALR 987.
9. In the instant case no claim is made, nor is there any evidence whatever to show, that defendants were guilty of any willful or wanton misconduct toward plaintiff, nor that defendants committed any act of affirmative or active negligence. The evidence is directed solely to an alleged structural defect in the *705 stairway and to the failure of defendants to warn plaintiff thereof. It is manifest that the alleged defect did not constitute a trap or hidden peril within the meaning of the law. The condition of the stairway was open and obvious; it could readily be observed by a person exercising ordinary care for his own safety. Defendants were under no obligation to reconstruct the stairway for the protection of plaintiff. Plaintiff took the premises as she found them. Defendants violated no duty that they owed to plaintiff.
The judgment is affirmed.