Opinion ID: 2161524
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Failure to Warn.

Text: Mrs. Babcock led the way as Mrs. Schoenfeldt followed her into the house. Mrs. Babcock said, Follow me, but she did not caution her with reference to the physical arrangement  of the platform and the basement stairs. The appellant contends that, as an invitee, Mrs. Schoenfeldt was entitled to a warning of an unsafe condition or a hidden peril and that the failure of Mrs. Babcock to give such warning was a factor which the jury could have held to constitute negligence. The appellant relies upon Lehman v. Amsterdam Coffee Co. (1911), 146 Wis. 213, 131 N. W. 362, in which case the entrance to the stairway was surrounded by store merchandise which was piled to heights of three to four and one-half feet. The court observed, at page 216, that the piling of merchandise practically concealed the stairway from view. The court went on to state, at page 218: The rule is familiar that where one invites another upon his premises he cannot without warning leave a snare or trap there into which the invited person falls while exercising ordinary care, and escape liability therefor. Barowski v. Schulz, 112 Wis. 415, 88 N. W. 236. We should be slow to say that an ordinary open stairway or hatchway in the storage part of a store could be called a trap or snare, even to an invitee. It is common knowledge that such places are very usual, and doubtless every person of full age should anticipate their existence; but the circumstances here are very much out of the ordinary. The stairway was surrounded on two sides with piles of merchandise as high or higher than the rail, and on side by shelving. The evidence seems to be ample to show that in approaching it from the front of the store there would be no sign or indication of a stairway, and that only as one came practically to the opening itself from the east was it possible to see it, or anything suggesting the existence of an opening in the floor. The jury might, we think, well say from the evidence that it was a trap or snare of whose existence under the circumstances the rules of ordinary care would require that an invited person be warned. In our opinion, the facts in the instant case are not comparable to the Lehman Case; there was no aspect of a  trap in the instant case which could have created a duty on the part of Mrs. Babcock to give a warning. The appellant also cites Campbell v. Sutliff (1927), 193 Wis. 370, 214 N. W. 374, which involved an unguarded open hole in the floor of a public garage through which coal could be stored in the basement. An invitee fell into the hole; the coal dealer, who had opened the hole and left it in that condition, was held responsible. In our opinion, there is no reasonable analogy between such an unguarded hole in the floor and an ordinary stairway which leads to a basement from a back-hall platform. A person of average intelligence would not expect to encounter an unguarded open coal hole in a public building; on the other hand, stairs are a common and ordinary means of going from one floor to another, and they are present in millions of households. A householder is not under a legal duty to warn of the presence of regular stairs unless, by reason of special circumstances, such stairs are secreted, camouflaged or otherwise situated so as to constitute a trap; under no reasonable interpretation can this be said to apply to the physical arrangements at the Babcock household.