Court Opinion

ID: 9571464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:32:00.66311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:27.724828
License: Public Domain

Lesinski, C. J.
(dissenting). Defendant processed this appeal upon denial by the trial court of a motion for a judgment non obstante veredicto.
*191The writer accepts the facts set forth in the majority opinion as properly reflecting the pertinent facts proven in this cause.
The issue on appeal is limited to the question of whether or not the plaintiffs proved prima facie notice or knowledge of the existence of a dangerous condition upon defendant’s premises.
It is clear from a reading of the record that no actual notice of a dangerous condition was shown. Plaintiff sought to prove constructive knowledge or notice to the defendant of the existence of a dangerous condition on the premises.
There is no disagreement between the writer and the majority on the question of the rules of law that govern the situation. However, there is a difference of opinion as to the application herein of the said rules.
Regarding the question of constructive notice, plaintiff established by uncontroverted testimony that she was in the defendant’s store from 45 to 50 minutes before the accident; that she was familiar with the sound a glass jar would make when it fell on a fairly hard floor; that she heard no such sound while she was in the store; that there was hardly anyone in the store, it was almost empty; that she was all alone in the aisleway when she fell; that while she was in the store no stock boys or clerks were on the floor; that the floor tile was of a light color; and that the jar of mayonnaise on which plaintiff slipped was a light color.
The only evidentiary fact not proven directly, which is necessary for the jury to make a valid determination of the question of whether defendant should have known that a dangerous condition existed on the premises, is when the jar fell. This vital element is supplied by inference reasonably drawn from the facts proven as stated above and from the description of the premises. The elimination of th.e *192probability that the jar fell and broke while she was in the store, by the reasoning that she would have heard it if it did fall while she was in the store, is but part of the inferential reasoning process and not the inferred fact itself. Prom direct evidence that a person in a store with few customers present, within 2 or 3 aisles of the place where the broken jar of mayonnaise was lying on the tile floor, and Such person having heard no sound resembling the one made by a jar breaking against a floor, one could reasonably infer that the jar of mayonnaise did not fall and break while such person was in the store. This inference is not bare conjecture. It relies on no other inference to make it. It is fairly drawn from other facts established by the proofs. "We are satisfied that the desired inference meets the test as set forth by 1 Wigmore on Evidence (3d ed), §41, p 439, quoting from the case of New York Life Insurcmce Co. v. McNeely (1938), 52 Ariz 181 (79 P2d 948):
“In civil cases, involving only property rights, * * * it is sufficient, if the ultimate fact is to be determined by an inference from facts which are established by direct evidence, that it be more probable than any other inference which could be drawn from the facts thus proven.”
The Supreme Court in Butrick v. Snyder (1926), 236 Mich 300, 305 said:
“The reasonable inferences which may be drawn from the affirmative facts proven are evidence, and not presumptions.”
...The jury having before it the proven facts and the evidence supplied by the inference based thereon was in a position to pass upon the question of whether, defendant had constructive knowledge of *193the existence of a dangerous condition upon the premises.
The duty of storekeepers toward customers is laid down in cases starting- as early as Brown v. Stevens (1904), 136 Mich 311, on through Wine v. Newcomb, Endicott & Co. (1918), 203 Mich 445; Yarington v. Huele (1922), 218 Mich 100; Shorkey v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (1932), 259 Mich 450; Filipowicz v. S. S. Kresge Co. (1937), 281 Mich 90.
A storekeeper is not a guarantor or insurer of the safety of his customers. However, he is liable for injury resulting from an unsafe condition caused by his active negligence or that of his employees, or if such condition, otherwise caused, is known to the storekeeper or is of such a character or has existed a sufficient length of time that he should have knowledge of it in the exercise of reasonable care.
The question of what is a sufficient leng’th of time for a dangerous condition to exist so as to conclude that one did not exercise reasonable care to discover it, by one charged with the duty so to do, is a question for the trier of facts. This gives rise to the question of whether or not the evidence introduced during trial is sufficient to stand the test of defendant’s motion for a judgment non obstante veredicto. The rule regarding the sufficiency of evidence was recently set forth in a 1963 Michigan Supreme Court case of Sparks v. Luplow (1963), 372 Mich 198, 202:
“It is a well-settled principle of law that on review of a trial court’s refusal to grant a motion for a directed verdict or judgment non obstante veredicto, the facts are reviewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff. Tacie v. White Motor Co., 368 Mich 521, 527. The test used is whether from the facts in the light most favorable to plaintiff, reasonable men could honestly reach a different *194conclusion. If the answer to this is ‘yes,’ the question is for the jury. Anderson v. Gene Deming Motor Sales, Inc., 371 Mich 223.”
In Sparks, supra, the situation is quite comparable to the present case. There the plaintiff slipped on a banana while shopping in defendant’s store. There was no direct evidence as to how long the banana had been on the floor. The only direct evidence was that the manager of the store had passed the spot where the accident occurred only 5 minutes prior to the accident and had not seen a banana at the time; that the janitor if he were performing his usual duties would have swept that aisle within the half hour preceding the fall; and that another employee had been working within 2 or 3 feet of the point of the accident immediately before the fall.
Based on the holding in Sparks, supra, the jury in the instant case had before it sufficient evidence to find that the defendant had constructive notice of a dangerous condition upon its premises.
The judgment should be affirmed, with costs to appellee.