Court Opinion

ID: 9767684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:23:44.647179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:32.393895
License: Public Domain

DALTON, Judge
(dissenting).
It is with regret that we find it necessary to dissent from the majority opinion in this case. We agree that the judgment must be reversed because the evidence clearly shows that plaintiff’s injuries did not result from any failure of the defendants to furnish to plaintiff a reasonably safe place in which to work. We also agree with respondents’ contention that plaintiff’s Instruction No. I is prejudicially erroneous. However, we think the facts in evidence were sufficient to make out a submissible case based upon a violation of defendants’ common-law duty to exercise ordinary care with reference to the method adopted and employed for the transaction of defendants’ business, all as hereinafter more fully set out. We think the cause should be remanded so that, in the event the plaintiff is so advised, she may properly plead, try and submit her case upon negligent failure to adopt a reasonably safe method of work or upon some other theory, as hereinafter mentioned. It is apparent that the record shows a misadventure on the part of plaintiff’s counsel in acting in part upon a mistaken legal theory. No question of intentional legal strategy is involved. See Blaser v. Coleman, 358 Mo. 157, 213 S.W.2d 420, 423; McClanahan v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 363 Mo. 500, 251 S.W.2d 704; McGaugh v. City of Fulton, 356 Mo. 1122, 205 S.W.2d 547, 552; Cantrell v. City of Caruthersville, 359 Mo. 282, 221 S.W.2d 471, 480; O’Neal v. Mavrakos Candy Co., 364 Mo. 467, 263 S.W.2d 430, 432 and the cases discussed in Smith v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 364 Mo. 104, 259 S.W.2d 692. We dissent from the conclusions reached in the principal opinion to the effect that the record fails to show that plaintiff, in the event of a reversal and remand, could not reasonably expect to make out a submissible case of negligent failure to adopt a reasonably safe method for the transaction of defendants’ business. While we agree with the statement in the majority opinion to the effect that “there was no showing that the card display rack and counter, considered apart from their setting, were materially different in design or construction from the counters with display racks generally installed in stores”, we disagree with the assumption that the defendants in this case adopted or employed the usual and customary method employed by an ordinarily prudent person in like work under similar circumstances. No such evidence appears in the record. The only evidence we find on that issue is directly to the contrary. Plaintiff’s witness Audrey I. Staat testified, as follows: “Q. Have you ever seen any of these counters similar to this in Famous-Barr? A. They have them in the middle of the floor. You can walk around all sides of them, you can’t get behind them and wait on them.” If similar display counters are located in the center of the floor or against the walls of the place of business no such method as that adopted by the defendants is or could be employed.
*692The allegations of plaintiff’s petition, the evidence offered and the submission by Instruction No. I (see paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Instruction) clearly demonstrate that plaintiff pleaded, tried and submitted her case in part on the theory of negligence in adopting an unsafe method of work, but she designated it and erroneously submitted it and confused it with negligence in failing to provide her with a reasonably safe place in which to work, while her evidence wholly failed to show any negligence in the latter respect.
The evidence shows that defendants employed plaintiff as a saleslady at its greeting card counter and that the counter was constructed as stated in the majority opinion. Plaintiff was five feet andi two inches in height and she was placed behind a counter which was four feet three inches high. With full knowledge of these facts the defendants adopted a method of work which required her to wait on trade from behind this counter so that, in making sales, receiving money and giving change, she had to reach over the top of the counter. The defendants required her to continue with said work in accordance with said method after the defendants knew that the method of work which they had adopted required her to unduly stretch and extend herself in performing her duties and knew that the method was causing strain and pain to plaintiff in the discharge of her duties. After the defendants knew that the method of work adopted by them was causing injury they assured her that she didn’t need a platform, and in effect that she could work there and use the method adopted with safety and without risk of personal harm.
The authorities cited in the majority opinion sufficiently show that under the law of this state an employer is required to adopt a reasonably safe method of work for the protection of his employees. It is true that, as stated in the opinion, there is no proof that the method adopted by defendants with reference to plaintiff’s employment was different from the ordinary usage of other employees with respect to persons engaged in like or similar work. However, where the evidence shows that the method adopted and used was dangerous and unsafe and was in fact causing injury and damage to plaintiff, it was unnecessary for plaintiff to show that the method adopted was different from ordinary usage, or that such “injury would be reasonably anticipated as a result of such work.” If the method adopted and used by defendants was that of ordinary usage, the employer could have made proof thereof in defense of the action.
From the evidence presented a jury could with propriety find that the method established and maintained by defendants for the sale of its merchandise requiring, as it did, that plaintiff stand behind this counter and card rack and reach over the rack in waiting on customers in the making of sales was a dangerous and unsafe method; and that it exposed plaintiff to an unreasonable risk of harm. It further appears from the evidence that there were perfectly safe methods of handling sales from in front of the rack or over a low counter. An inference can be drawn that the defendant manager well knew that the method adopted would impose an unreasonable risk of harm to plaintiff in reaching over such a high rack. There was evidence that he had said that a platform would be built back of the counter to raise plaintiff up and so compensate for the increase in the height of the rack.
Liability cannot be imposed upon the defendants merely because they chose to employ one method of carrying oh their business rather than another, unless the method selected was hot reasonably safe. In this case we cannot say, as a matter of law, that the method adopted and put into effect for plaintiff in the discharge of her duties was a reasonably safe method. And it is not essential to plaintiff’s recovery that it appear that defendants could reasonably have anticipated that plaintiff would be injured in the precise manner in which she was injured. It is sufficient if it appears, from all the facts and circumstances in evidence, *693that defendant, in the exercise of ordinary care and prudence, ought to have foreseen that some injury was likely to result to plaintiff by reason of the method thus adopted for doing the work. On the evidence presented we think that reasonable minds may differ in determining whether the defendants were guilty of negligence in requiring the plaintiff to perform her work in the manner shown. Timmerman v. Frankel, 172 Mo.App. 174, 181, 157 S.W. 1051. The record indicates that plaintiff might well make out a submissible case of such negligence in the event of a remand.
Further, it is not clear that the facts in this case have been fully developed, nor that plaintiff (under the facts appearing in this record) could not recover on some other theory of negligence. We cannot say that plaintiff, in the event the cause is reversed and remanded, might not properly plead and submit her cause upon negligence in ordering and directing plaintiff to perform work which the defendants knew or by the exercise of care should have known that plaintiff could not safely perform. It is clear that the defendants were fully advised as to the height of plaintiff with relation to the height of the counter at the time she was directed to work behind the counter and carry on the work according to the method prescribed. Further, her physical stature and physical condition were known to defendants and they knew the physical effect resulting to plaintiff from the method of work adopted and ordered by defendants. In the case of Hamilton v. Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, 323 Mo. 531, 19 S.W.2d 679, it was held that an employee’s petition stated a cause of action against his employer and foreman for injuries (latent tuberculosis to become active) sustained by the employee when driving rivets with a heavy hammer, as directed by the employer. In that case the petition alleged that the defendants had full knowledge of plaintiff’s physical condition and capacity to do physical work and that the injuries were occasioned by defendants’ negligence in directing plaintiff to perform such work. And see Brown v. Scullin Steel Co., 364 Mo. 225, 260 S.W.2d 513, 518, where the Hamilton case was distinguished upon its facts from the Brown case. In the Hamilton case the court said: “Therefore, if the defendants in this case had knowledge, either actual or constructive, of plaintiff’s physical condition and of his capacity to do physical labor, and knew or should have known that plaintiff could not reasonably and safely do the work which they ordered him to do, and that he would likely be seriously injured if he attempted it, they were guilty of negligence in ordering him to do the work, regardless of their knowledge of what plaintiff knew or did not know. The petition alleges these facts, and we hold it states a cause of action.” 19 S.W.2d 679, 683, 684.
On a favorable view of the evidence presented by plaintiff in the trial of her case we think that in a properly pleaded and submitted case a jury could reasonably find that the manager’s direction to plaintiff as shown in evidence was tantamount to an order to continue her work (using the method adopted by defendant) irrespective of its effect on plaintiff and on pain of loss of her employment in the event she refused to so proceed. Further, we think that the facts would present a jury question as to whether defendants were negligent in ordering plaintiff to work at the place and using the method adopted when they knew or should have known that such procedure would cause injury and damage to plaintiff.
In remanding a case for new trial with leave to amend, this court in Doty v. American National Ins. Co., 350 Mo. 192, 165 S.W.2d 862, 870, 143 A.L.R. 1062, said: “We do this on the authority of the rule that where it appears from the record that a plaintiff has rights growing out of the transaction but has misconceived his remedy an appellate court has jurisdiction to remand the cause to permit the petition to be amended and the cause retried.”
*694We would reverse the judgment and remand'the cause with directions to the trial court to set the judgment aside and to grant the defendants-respondents a new trial on the ground of error in the giving of Instruction I, so that the plaintiff, if so advised, may amend her pleadings and properly plead, try and submit her cause upon some more appropriate ground of negligence than negligence in failing to provide a reasonably safe place to work.
HOLLINGSWORTH, C. J., concurs in dissenting opinion of DALTON, J.