Opinion ID: 1931148
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Exception Five

Text: This exception was taken to the directed verdict for the defendant, and involves the question of whether the presiding justice was authorized to so direct for the reason that a contrary verdict could not be sustained by the evidence. We do not think he was so authorized under the record of this case, and this exception must be sustained. The controverted facts should have been decided by the jury. More than one inference can be drawn from the evidence. We can neither say, as a matter of law, that the defendant was or was not negligent, nor can we say, as a matter of law, that the testimony shows due care or the lack of due care on the part of the plaintiff. The evidence viewed in a manner most favorable to the plaintiff, shows that the plaintiff came at noontime from the daylight of out of doors. She was invited by the hotel management to visit and to patronize, as she planned, this cocktail lounge, or Coral Room in the basement. It was a room lighted, when at all lighted, by artificial light. She and the friend with her had never before been in this room. The room was open for patrons, and customers were sitting on the upper level. At the bar, which was at the distant left-hand corner of the large room as the plaintiff came to the entrance, stood the bartender and waiters. The room was dimly lighted, and the central and far portion of the room, which was on a twelve inch lower level than at the entrance, may or may not have been then lighted by its lamps or chandeliers. One witness stated that the lights in the Pit were not on, and that the room was very dim. Another witness claimed that all the lights were on. In any event, the size of bulbs used, the shades, the paint on the walls, the floor carpeting, and the color and arrangement of furniture, made for a subdued light effect. The burden is on the plaintiff to show that she exercised due care for her own safety under the circumstances. Due care is the care of the ordinarily careful and prudent person. It is not the care of the most careful person or the most careless, but the care under the circumstances then existing of one who is ordinarily careful and prudent. The plaintiff endeavored to show, and perhaps a jury would say she did show, that she walked from bright light, as an invitee, into a darkened room, if it was darkened, with an attractive, alluring and enticing interior. She says she saw a waiter, or a person in a white coat, apparently approaching from the distant corner and walked towards him. It was not light enough, she says, to see his features. Did the circumstances warrant the thought, or belief, in the mind of the ordinarily careful person, that this white coat indicated that she should walk ahead to be seated and be waited upon? Did she use ordinary care, in walking forward as she did, towards and to the steps that led down to the lower level? Were there any objects to warn the ordinarily careful and prudent person of danger? Was there light sufficient and so located that she should have seen? Should she have looked at the room or watched the floor? Was there anything that required the plaintiff to shuffle her feet and to test the floor for a rope across her path, or for an excavation made by repairs, or a lower level that might exist with a step or two steps down? Should she have anticipated an abrupt change in level? It is a well known rule of law that it is not contributory negligence on the part of an invitee in not looking for danger when there is no reason to apprehend any. Patten v. Bartlett, 111 Me. 409, 89 A. 375, 49 L.R.A.,N.S., 1120. Was there anything to indicate danger here? Did she have reason to apprehend any? It is not necessary to show a positive act of care if it appears that there is absence of fault. Guthrie v. Maine Cent. Railroad, Co., 81 Me. 572, 580, 18 A. 295; McLane v. Perkins, 92 Me. 39, 44, 42 A. 255, 43 L.R.A. 487. What would the ordinary person who is ordinarily careful have done or refrained from doing? There is evidence enough in this record to warrant a finding by the jury as to whether or not the plaintiff exercised legal care. There is also sufficient evidence of negligence (or of care) on the part of the defendant, to authorize a favorable or other finding by the jury, depending on what testimony is believed. The evidence conflicts. How was the room constructed and maintained? Was there proper lighting in the room? If insufficient light, or improper light on the lower level, was there under the circumstances, a trap or dangerous condition? It is true that it is not negligence per se to have a floor of two levels. Ware v. Evangelical Baptist Benevolent & Missionary Society, 181 Mass. 285, 63 N.E. 885; but if there are two levels, and the two levels make a dangerous condition due to improper or insufficient lighting, or lack of proper warning or other circumstance, to protect the invitee who is using the legal care demanded, the jury might find negligence on the part of the defendant company. The defendant company is held to the care of the ordinarily careful and prudent person who invites a customer in for business purposes. The premises must be reasonably safe. The jury must decide whether or not this Coral Room used by the public was constructed and maintained with that due care which to an ordinarily prudent man, in view of its purpose, should have been exercised by the defendant to prevent injuries to customers using it. The defendant must not, by any lack of ordinary care, cause injury to the customer who is himself in the exercise of ordinary care. Where an actor as an invitee was injured by striking a damp spot on the floor, the defendant owed a duty to have the stage free from hidden defects which, by the exercise of reasonable care, could not have been discovered and guarded against. What may be apparent in the daytime may become a pitfall in the darkness or when the light is dim; and, likewise a condition obvious to one with an opportunity to investigate may be a trap to him who is precluded by the nature of his work from making a careful examination. Thaxter, J., in Franklin v. Maine Amusement Co., 133 Me. 203, 205, 175 A. 305, 306. See also Low v. Grand Trunk Ry. Co., 72 Me. 313, 24 Am.Rep. 331; Mayhew v. Sullivan Mining Co., 76 Me. 100; Campbell v. Portland Sugar Co., 62 Me. 552, 16 Am. Rep. 503; Foren v. Rodick, 90 Me. 276, 38 A. 175. The action of the presiding justice in directing a verdict for the defendant was error. The facts present questions for determination by a jury. Exception sustained.