Court Opinion

ID: 9646345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:57:36.61711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:37.518699
License: Public Domain

On Petition to Rehear.
HALE, J.
Mrs. Cherry has filed a petition to rehear directed at the opinion filed on May 23, 1950. (1) It is asserted “That in the opinion handed down by your *37Honors it was held in substance that the fact that the molding was not flush with the floor was a defect. It is respectfully maintained that even if, as a matter of fact, this condition did exist, it was not alleged in plaintiff Sampson’s declaration, and, as a matter of fact, plaintiff based her entire case and claimed as the only defect the looseness of the molding in question.”
The declaration charges this molding was “loose and so loose and in such shape that it was unsafe”. (Emphasis supplied.) No objection was made to the introduction of evidence of the floor being lower than the strip in question. The photographs filed by the petitioner show this strip is not flush with the floor at the place the plaintiff was injured.
Next it is said: “Your Honors held that plaintiff caught the toe of her right galosh under the molding in question. We beg to differ with your Honors on this point. The record is silent as to how or what part of plaintiff’s right foot was hung.”
The plaintiff testified her galoshes were longer than her shoes; that was “about an inch . . . vacant space” between her toe and the outer part of the galosh. She was facing the counter, and there is no evidence of deformity in her foot. We think a fair inference is that her toe was caught under or by this molding.
It is next said there is “absolutely no evidence in the record showing that the molding was loose prior to the accident”. John Crowl testified that on the second day after the accident he examined this molding and found (a) there was trash and dirt “accumulated” under it; and (b) the nails at the end were bent and rusty and hadn’t been driven into anything else. The jury accepted this testimony and we are bound thereby. A fair inference is that this molding had not been properly *38nailed to the base and that this condition had existed so long as to allow the accumulation of dirt and trash behind it.
 It is said we erred in not applying the rule announced in Buckeye Cotton Oil Co. v. Campagna, 146 Tenn. 389, 242 S. W. 646, and Hill v. Castner-Knott Dry Goods Co., 25 Tenn. App. 230, 166 S. W. (2d) 638, to the effect that a verdict cannot be based upon conjecture. This is sound law, but has no application to the instant case, which shows a defective condition, existing for such a period of time, and under such conditions, as to charge the owner with actual or constructive knowledge thereof, which was the prime and proximate cause of plaintiff’s fall and resultant injury.
The petition to rehear is denied.