Court Opinion

ID: 9540402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:15:36.561152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:32.637777
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Bok :
There is no doubt that plaintiff was an invitee. He was not on the premises on automotive business, and he always used the same door. A daily iceman was held to be one in Robb v. Niles Bement-Pond Co., 269 Pa. 298, 112 A. 459 (1921). So was a Availing salesman, in Hartman v. Miller, 143 Pa. Superior Ct. 143, 17 A. 2d 652 (1941).
One does not ordinarily expect to meet a plank suspended five feet in mid-air.
The majority is based entirely on the idea that this plank Avas obvious. This is contrary to the evidence. Plaintiff testified: “Q. Was it visible? A. . . . the car was dark and this plank Avas dark and there was shadows ... it seemed much darker there between the car than in the rest of the building. Q. You mean between the car and the Avail than in the rest of the building? A. That’s right.”
Plaintiff had gone to the garage six days per week for six months. He testified: “Q. Had you ever seen previously this plank sticking out of any automobiles? A. Never. Q. Had you ever previously seen any tools on the floor there? A. Definitely.”
There is also evidence that two of defendants’ employes had bumped into the plank and hurt themselves a short time before; they mentioned five or six times. *650Another employe, Dean Agnew, hit the plank with his head earlier in the day on which plaintiff did.
What is so obvious about such a plank?
It becomes even less obvious when we consider the condition of the floor.
The automobile was only three or four feet inside the door where plaintiff entered. The plank stuck two feet out of its windows into the aisle between it and the wall. Plaintiff properly looked where he was going and saw tools in his path. He then said: “A. I looked down and I was picking my way over these tools and I collided with this plank. Q. Did you see the plank before you collided with it? A. No, I didn’t.” (Italics mine)
With so many tools on the floor in his path that he had to pick his way over them, the obviousness of the suspended plank became minimal. It was as effectively hidden as a substantial and tortious defect in the pavement that has been covered from view by wind-blown rubbish.
It is common human experience that people expect injury less from above than from below. The area one walks on requires a person’s major obligation to look: Avhat may be hanging in the air requires a lesser obligation since less of an injurious nature is generally found there. Where danger exists both above and below, it should be for a jury to say how effectively a man has divided his attention and whether defendants protected him adequately, especially where the dangerous object aloft is also dark against a dark background and in shadow.
Precedents upholding liability in odd situations are: Bloomer v. Snellenburg, 221 Pa. 25, 69 A. 124 (1908), a sudden and unexpected drop in floor level in a store; Johnson v. Rulon, 363 Pa. 585, 70 A. 2d 325 (1950), asn open trap door in the floor of a restaurant; *651Wood v. Lit Brothers, 173 Pa. Superior Ct. 4, 94 A. 2d 69 (1953), tlie absence of a glass panel in a door; Kanner v. Best Markets, Inc., 188 Pa. Superior Ct. 366, 147 A. 2d 172 (1958), the presence of a glass panel which plaintiff had reason to treat as an open entrance: Schaublin v. Leber (N.J.), 142 A. 2d 910 (1958), the protruding open window of a parked station wagon.
The opinion in Johnson is especially apt. The present Chief Justice said: “The opening in the floor, while not entirely hidden, was largely obscured from the plaintiff’s view by the music box, as he walked back between the music box and the lunch counter. . . . Such being the case, it could hardly be said, as a matter of law, that the bill of fare for the day emblazoned on the wall of a public eating house is not a sufficient attention-arrester to excuse an invitee for having looked up from Where he was about to take his next step.” (Italics mine)
If an attention-arrester can be up, it can also be down, a fortiori since down is where, generally, one must look for trouble.
It seems gravely unjust to deprive this man of his verdict under such circumstances. I would let him keep it.
Mr. Justice Musmanno and Mr. Justice McBride join in this dissent.