Court Opinion

ID: 9846954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:51:04.181792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:57.856537
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Day
specially concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion and in the result therein, but believe that in view of the record additional comments are in order.
The record herein discloses that the argument and ensuing scuffle between the women, in which they fell on the floor and engaged in hair pulling, the altercation resulting in the ripping of the telephone from the wall and the other elements of the melee continued for a period of about fifteen to twenty minutes. During all this time the defendant in error was a willing spectator. Therefore, while it is the law that the owner of an establishment like “Cubs Inn” owes to his customers or patrons the duty of ordinary care and diligence to protect them, the patrons also have a duty to protect themselves when they can readily observe a situation getting out of hand. This is particularly true when they had full knowledge that the establishment was in charge of a lone woman. Therefore the right that Leep had to rely on the implied promise of the proprietor that he would be protected from injury while lawfully on the premises is of no avail to him when he had a reasonable time — in the present instance from ten to fifteen minutes — to absent himself from the vicinity of the struggle which eventually enveloped him. To put it another way, this record not only shows that the proprietor was not negligent but that Leep was injured by reason of his own folly in remaining to see “the fireworks.”