Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/343/343mass524.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 18:20:55+00:00

Document:
MILDRED DENTON vs. PARK HOTEL, INC.
TORT. Writ in the Superior Court dated June 7, 1956.
Melvin S. Louison, for the defendant.
No brief nor argument for the plaintiff.
SPALDING, J. The auditor, to whom this action of tort was referred, found for the plaintiff. Thereafter, the case was tried to a jury who likewise found for the plaintiff. The case comes here on the defendant's exceptions to the denial of its motion for a directed verdict, to the denial of its motion to strike portions of the auditor's report, to certain rulings on evidence, and to the failure to grant a request for instruction.
a patron named Viera. While dancing they passed over the outer edge of the trap door and "one of the heels of the plaintiff's high heeled shoes caught in a ring of the trap door," causing her to fall, as a result of which she sustained a fractured wrist.
The plaintiff was a business invitee to whom the defendant owed a duty to use due care to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition. Rossley v. S. S. Kresge Co. 339 Mass. 654, 656. The indented rings, located as they were in a portion of the floor where dancing was permitted, would warrant a finding that the defendant had not discharged that duty. The fact that the plaintiff knew of the existence of the trap door did not require a finding that she was contributorily negligent as matter of law. Boday v. Thibault, 337 Mass. 243, 246. Likewise the judge did not err in denying the requested instruction that the "plaintiff . . . is bound by her testimony that she knew the trap door was there." The request "presented no crucial test by which the issue of due care could be determined." Barnes v. Berkshire St. Ry. 281 Mass. 47, 52.
3. Viera, with whom the plaintiff was dancing at the time she fell, was a deaf mute. The judge excluded evidence offered by the defendant to the effect that persons in the bar generally made fun of Viera and looked upon him as a clown. This evidence was irrelevant and was rightly excluded. There was also no error in the exclusion of the photographs of Viera.
involved, and there would naturally be differences in the care and skill employed by them while dancing. But the danger of collateral issues, we think, would not be so great as to outweigh the relevancy of this evidence and require its exclusion as matter of law. See Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed.) Sections 444, 458; Hughes on Evidence, Section 293; 128 A. L. R. 592, 595 et seq.
5. In the cross-examination of the defendant's manager, the plaintiff's counsel was permitted, subject to the defendant's exception, to ask the witness if he had told the plaintiff that he was "sorry" the accident happened, and the witness answered that he had. Apart from any question of the manager's authority (see Rankin v. Brockton Pub. Mkt. Inc. 257 Mass. 6, 11), this evidence ought not to have been admitted. It was no more than an expression of sympathy by the defendant's manager for the mishap which had befallen the plaintiff. Conti v. Brockton Ice & Coal Co. 295 Mass. 15, 17. It had no probative value as an admission of responsibility or liability. Rasimas v. Swan, 320 Mass. 60, 62. Common decency should not be penalized by treating such statements as admissions. The only possible reason for introducing this evidence was to lay before the jury evidence which might carry the flavor of an admission. We cannot say that this evidence was not prejudicial to the defendant, and are of opinion that the exception must be sustained. We have not overlooked the case of Dunbar v. Ferrera Bros. Inc. 306 Mass. 90, 93-94, where it was held that the refusal to strike out like testimony was not prejudicial error. But there are circumstances which distinguish that case from the present. There such testimony carried "no greater implications" than similar testimony which was introduced later by the plaintiff without objection. To the extent that the Dunbar case is at variance with what is now decided, we decline to follow it.
6. We have dealt with the principal exceptions argued by the defendant; other questions need not be discussed, as they are not likely to arise on a retrial of the case.
[Note 1] "That the allowance of dancing by the defendant corporation in the open area at the rounded end of the bar where the trap door with metal rings comprised part of the dark colored floor, with defendant knowing that many of its dancing patrons would be women wearing shoes with high heels, was negligence on the part of the defendant corporation. The corporation failed in its duty to use ordinary care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition for one of the customary uses of the premises as a place of informal dancing by its business invitees. That plaintiff had a right to assume that the floor would be reasonably safe for the customary use of dancing and that the rings would be filled with raised portions of the trap door or wooden or other type plugs to protect the female patrons from catching their high heels in such small dark traps."

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.