Case Name: MARTIN v. JONES
Court: Utah Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Utah
Decision Date: 1953-02-02
Citations: 122 Utah 597
Docket Number: No. 7766
Parties: MARTIN v. JONES.
Judges: McDONOUGH, HENRIOD and WADE, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Utah Reports
Volume: 122
Pages: 597–608

Head Matter:
MARTIN v. JONES.
No. 7766.
Decided February 2, 1953.
(253 P. 2d 359.)
See 65 C. J. S., Negligence, sec. 287. Duty and liability of proprietor respecting condition of store. 38 Am. Jur., Negligence, sec. 131; 162 A. t. R. 949.
McCullough, Boyce & McCullough, Salt Lake City, for appellant.
Stewart, Cannon & Hanson and Ernest F. Baldwin, Jr., Salt Lake City, for respondent.

Opinion:
WOLFE, Chief Justice.
This action was commenced by the appellant, plaintiff below to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by him when he fell down a dumb-waiter shaft in the respondent's drug store. In the court below a jury returned a verdict of "no cause of action" against the appellant and from judgment entered on that verdict he brings this appeal contending that the court did not correctly instruct the jury as to the duty owed him by the respondent.
On the night of November 11, 1950, the appellant entered the respondent's drug store to make some purchases. Except for the soda fountain, prescriptions, cosmetics and bottled liquor, customers are allowed to pick up and handle merchandise in the store without the assistance of clerks although the respondent attempted whenever possible to have clerks wait on customers as soon as they entered the store. The appellant testified that upon entering the store he asked a woman clerk for some tablets and razor blades which she obtained for him and for which he paid her. He then asked for an automatic pencil and was told by the clerk that they were on a display card on a shelf behind the liquor counter which was in another part of the store. Appellant then said, "I will get one", and with the clerk following him he proceeded to the rear of the counter where bottled liquor was sold. He testified that he did not observe any signs barring his admittance or that anything was said to him by the clerk about not going behind the counter. Appellant noticed nothing unusual about the floor behind the counter although he testified that the floor was "shadowy." As he reached up on tip-toe to remove the display card from the shelf which was about seven feet above the floor, he took a step sideways onto what appeared to be the floor and suddenly fell down a dumb-waiter shaft into the basement about eight to ten feet below.
In conflict with the testimony of the appellant that a woman clerk followed him to the rear of the- counter, Mrs. Raedell Ashley and Mrs. Aletha Cannon, clerks working in the store on the night of the accident, testified-on behalf of the respondent that after the appellant had completed his purchase of tablets and razor blades, he said nothing about wanting to buy a pencil and that they both went about serving other customers, thinking he intended to leave the store. Mrs. Cannon testified that when she next observed the appellant he was standing behind the liquor' counter with the display card of pencils in his hand.; that she walked over to him and asked if she could serve him,' to which he replied that he wanted a pencil; that after he removed a pencil from the card, he turned to replace the card on the shelf and in so doing fell down the shaft. She testified that she did not tell him that customers were not allowed behind the liquor counter but attempted to help him and get him out from behind the counter as soon as possible without hurting his feelings; that the lighting in the store made the open shaft visible and, thinking he could see it, she did not deem it necessary to warn him of his proximity to it. Respondent produced evidence that at the entrance to the rear of the counter was posted a sign reading "No Admittance, Employees Only."
Around the shaft on the floor was a moulding about four inches wide and one inch high. The shaft had been constructed to accommodate a dumb-waiter but the use of the elevator had been discontinued. The shaft was used, however, in the evenings when the liquor department was closed as an opening through which employees pushed boxes of liquor from the basement to replenish the stock on the shelves. Except when the shelves were being stocked, the dumb waiter was usually pulled up until the platform of the dumb-waiter was almost flush with the floor and was secured in that position. The platform could then be walked on as part of the floor by clerks walking behind the counter.
Appellant had been in the store several times prior to the accident and admitted that on those occasions he had not seen customers behind the liquor counter. He further admitted that on one occasion he had walked behind the prescription counter and was told to leave by the respondent.
The trial court in its Instruction No. 9 to the jury-charged them that:
"If you find that the aisle behind the liquor counter was not intended for and was not a place used by customers and patrons of defendant [respondent] and was intended and used only as a working area for use by defendant's employees, and that plainly visible signs were posted signifying the area was not for customers, and if you further find that plaintiff [appellant] walked behind said counter to the vicinity of said opening, without the direction or consent of the defendant or his employees, then you are instructed that in walking behind said counter, plaintiff was a trespasser and took the premises as he found them, and defendant owed him no duty whatever with respect to the existence of the opening, except to not wilfully or knowingly injure him, and he is not entitled to recover, and your verdict must be in favor of the defendant, and against the plaintiff, No Cause of Action." (Italics mine.)
The italicized portion of the instruction does not correctly state the duty which a land owner owes to a trespasser whom he knows to be upon his premises. By the respondent's own evidence, the appellant did not walk behind the liquor counter and fall down the dumb-waiter shaft without first being seen and discovered by one of the respondent's employees. One of the clerks noticed the appellant behind the liquor counter before his fall, and in fact went over to serve him. By her own testimony, she (the clerk) was standing at the side of the appellant for "a few minutes" before he fell down the shaft. Such being the undisputed facts, the duty owed to the appellant by the respondent was erroneously stated in Instruction No. 9. Such duty is correctly set forth in Sec. 337 of the Restatement of the Law of Torts, to wit:
"A possessor of land who maintains thereon an artificial condition which involves a risk of death or serious bodily harm to persons coming in contact therewith, is subject to liability for bodily harm .caused to trespassers by his failure to exercise reasonable care to warn them thereof if
"(a) -.the possessor knows or, from facts -within his knowledge, should know of their presence in dangerous proximity, to the. artificial condition, and
" (b) the condition is of such a nature that he has reason to believe that the trespasser will not discover it or realize the .risk involved therein."
It is clear that the shaft was an artificial condition which involved a risk of death or serious bodily harm to persons coming in contact therewith; also, that the respondent's servant knew of the appellant's presence in dangerous proximity to the shaft. As to the requirement that the artificial condition must be of such a nature -. that the possessor of land has reason to . believe that the trespasser will not discover it, a jury question was presented in the instant case. Under all the circumstances a jury could find that the respondent's clerk, Mrs. Cannon, who stood beside the appellant behind the liquor counter in close proximity to the hole, had reason to believe that he would not discover the shaft. Undoubtedly she had reason to know that appellant had not been behind the liquor counter before as customers were not allowed there. She knew he was reaching for a high shelf and that his attention was directed upon the display card and the shelf and not upon the floor. A jury could reasonably conclude she should have realized that the appellant had no reason to suspect that behind a counter where clerks walked back and forth when selling liquor there would be an open hole in the floor.
This case is quite unlike Knox v. Snow, 119 Utah 522, 229 P. 2d 874, 876, cited by the respondent, where the plaintiff fell into a grease pit in a garage and was injured. There the court in holding that he was contributorily negligent as a matter of law pointed out that
"From his previous experiences and observations of similar shops where motor vehicles are serviced, he could reasonably be charged with knowledge that some of the equipment in the shop would present hazards to one paying no attention to the obstacles across the course to be taken. Furthermore, the evidence establishes that he knew the path he was taking was not free and clear as while proceeding across the room toward the rack he stepped over both beams of a hyclraulic hoist which was in his pathway and he maneuvered his way around cans and other debris on the floor of the shop. In spite of knowing the probability of other obstacles blocking his course, plaintiff continued forward without seeing the cement border around the pit, the grease pit, or the ladder which was protruding prominently from the pit. The hydraulic hoist was located about nine feet from the pit, and the grease and oil cans were between the hoist and the pit. These obstructions compelled plaintiff to pay some heed to the floor of the shop and the path he travelled as he crossed the service room in order to avoid tripping over them."
No such facts obtain in the instant case. There were no preliminary circumstances which would reasonably draw the appellant's attention to the fact that he was in a hazardous area. A jury could find that Mrs. Cannon had reason to believe that the appellant did not have notice of and would not discover a hazard on the floor behind the counter. Assuming that she thought that he read the "No Admittance" sign as he made his way behind the counter, she could be charged with the realization that he had no reason to believe that his admittance was barred because of hazards lurking, but because the management did not want the liquor bottles tampered with, being under bond to the State for their strict account. That there should be an open hole behind a counter in a modern store where clerks walk seems certainly extraordinary, raising a jury question as to whether the respondent's employees had reason to believe that a customer who was unfamiliar with' that part of the store and who had his attention focused on a display card seven feet above the floor would not see an open hole in the floor.
The judgment below is reversed and a new trial is ordered. Costs to the appellant.
McDONOUGH, HENRIOD and WADE, JJ., concur.