Court Opinion

ID: 9456855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:04:20.536738+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:07.468217
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
It is difficult not to be persuaded by Judge Bright’s careful opinion. I do not disagree with the conclusion that there was evidence of negligence, nor with the admission of the architect’s evidence, on the assumption that it was to show that because the stair was not normal a person would be taken off guard. Indeed, permitting the user to assume the stairs were normal was the negligence. Cf. Maloney v. City of Grand Forks, 73 N.D. 445, 15 N.W.2d 769, 775 (1944). But this plaintiff was not taken off guard. I find it impossible to say that in the light of what in fact was disclosed to her she exercised reasonable care.
This was not a poorly lighted stairway, with no opportunity to observe defects. Nor was plaintiff unable to observe. She stood at the top of the stairs; she looked down; she could see so well that she even counted the steps, an impossible achievement unless she was in a good position to see what was before her. She testified,
“So it looked to me like it was a hole, you know. * * * And I looked down, oh, very steep steps
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“They looked like ladders instead of steps.”
She added that they were “not level,” and “scraped up.”
Q. “And you could see all that?”
A. “Yes, I could.”
Plaintiff then proceeded without waiting for a person coming up — a very short wait — to afford her free use of the handrail, and without even looking where she placed her foot.
The district court’s response to plaintiff’s testimony was that “the dangerous depth of the first riser [was] a condition concealed to one approaching the stairway from the upper landing.” With great respect, what does “very steep” mean? And, for good measure, “not level,” in terms of an abnormal step? The court cites no North Dakota, or, in fact, any decision that permits such a disregard of tangible, observed evidence. I am obliged to dissent.