Court Opinion

ID: 9642677
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:06:00.70381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:50.843413
License: Public Domain

HOOD, Chief Judge
(dissenting) -.
I cannot agree with the majority opinion that Shaw was a mere licensee when he entered the Miller & Long Co. office on the construction site. The record, though deficient in some details, establishes by fair and reasonable inference the following factual background. Miller. & Long Co. was. engaged in construction work on a site across the street from Monroe Ford Company. On the construction site Miller & Long had an office. Whether it be called, a construction shack or a field office is not: material; it was the control center of Miller & Long’s work on the site. As Miller & Long’s work progressed, on three different occasions an employee of Miller &• Long was sent across the street to make-small purchases on credit from Monroe Ford. Thus a business relationship was-established between Miller & Long and'. Monroe Ford. Naturally, there came a time-when Monroe Ford wished to be paid. Miller & Long’s employee, when making the-purchases, had given no instructions as to-billing for payment. On the occasion in. question, Monroe Ford sent its employee-Shaw across the street to obtain the required information. He went to Miller & Long’s office and obtained the information, but was injured before he left.
Shaw did not go to the office “for his own pleasure or convenience,” or that of his employer. He went there in connection with an unfinished business transaction between his employer and Miller & Long. He was there “for a purpose connected with *702or related to the business” of Miller & Long. Peregoy v. Western Maryland Ry. Co., 202 Md. 203, 95 A.2d 867, 869 (1953). He was therefore an invitee. The bookkeeping department of Miller & Long was not located in the construction office, and its purchasing department was not located there. But from that office a Miller & Long employee had been sent across the street to buy on credit from Monroe Ford. Monroe Ford was impliedly invited to send its employee across the street to Miller & Long’s office to find out how payment was to be obtained. Shaw was in the office of Miller & Long in connection with an unfinished business transaction originating from that office. He was not a mere licensee.
As the majority opinion does not reach the question of res ipsa loquitur, neither do I.