Court Opinion

ID: 9551040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:46:56.160715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:56.325534
License: Public Domain

PERRY, J.,
dissenting.
I am unable to agree with my associates’ interpretation of the evidence and the law applicable thereto as set out in the majority opinion.
At the time of the injury plaintiff was 13 years old. He was attending as a student St. Paul’s Parochial School located near Silverton, Oregon. The injury occurred when plaintiff, along with other members of his class, was leaving the school building at the end of the school day on March 15,1960. The school’s front exit consisted of a double wooden door which opened outward at the center. The doors contained four glass panels. These panels were four or five inches above the mechanism by which the door was opened. The mechanism by which the door was to be opened was a bar extending across the door, and by exerting pressure in a downward manner, the latch was lifted and the door would open outward. The bar which was hinged so that it always went downward when pressure was applied was described as a panic bar.
Plaintiff testified that he was following another boy who had opened the door; that the door was closing as he reached it; that he reached for the panic bar, which was “more or less” at his “stomach level”; that his hand slipped off of the bar, and in some unexplained way, went upward and through the glass door. There is no evidence that the panic bar was, or ever had been slippery, or that it failed to move downward when pressure was applied.
The majority discuss only the allegation of the complaint that the defendant was negligent in “failing to *503install plate glass in the front doors being used by pupils.” I therefore assume that they agree with me that there is no evidence to support the plaintiff’s other allegations of negligence, such as “maintaining a defective panic bar and latch on said door.”
I agree that the plaintiff was at the time of his injury an invitee on the premises owned and operated by the defendants.
Comment f of 2 Eestatement of Torts, § 343, page 944, to which reference is made by the majority, has no application whatever to this case. Comment f, as shown by the subject and the example, deals with “Appliances used on land” such as “providing a gas stove to be used in an unventilated bathroom.” There is no evidence in this case of any appliance being furnished to the plaintiff for his use that might cause injury. The sole question is whether a door with glass panels used as an integral part of the premises constituted a dangerous condition. Section 343 of the Eestatement of Torts, chapter 13 at page 938, is as follows:
“A possessor of land is subject to liability for bodily harm caused to business visitors by a natural or artificial condition thereon if, but only if, he
(a) knows, or by the exercise of reasonable care could discover, the condition which, if known to him, he should realize as involving an unreasonable risk to them, and
(b) has no reason to believe that they will discover the condition or realize the risk involved therein, and
(c) invites or permits them to enter or remain upon the land without exercising reasonable care
(i) to make the condition reasonably safe, or
(ii) to give a warning adequate to enable them to avoid the harm without relin*504quisling any of the services which they are entitled to receive, if the possessor is a public utility.” (Emphasis mine.)
This is the rule of law followed in this state as applicable to public places which the public is invited to use. Gow v. Multnomah Hotel, Inc., 191 Or 45, 224 P2d 552, 228 P2d 791. Thus, under the facts of this case, and the pertinent law, the question of fact to be answered is whether or not the defendants knew or should have known that the use of double-strength glass in the type of door built and equipped as it was with a panic bar, upon which force was to be exerted downward, constituted an unreasonable risk of injury to the pupils of the school.
The defendants are not insurers of absolute safety, and are not required to guard against the mere possibility of an accident, but only those hazards which a reasonably prudent person in the position of the defendants could reasonably be required to anticipate from the use of the premises in a proper manner by a pupil. Waller v. N. P. Terminal Co. of Oregon, 178 Or 274, 166 P2d 488. That there is no evidence upon this fact is demonstrated by the record in this case. First, there is not an iota of evidence that if the door was used in the manner in which it was intended that it should be used, either in opening, or holding it open, that the glass, whatever its nature, constituted any hazard to any user of the door. Therefore, before it can be said that the use of glass of any nature constituted negligence, it must first be shown that the manner in which the door was used was known, or should have teen known, to the defendants, as reasonable operators of the school, so that the using of an inferior glass under these circumstances would con*505stitute a hazard to those using the door in such a manner.
There is absolutely no evidence that this door, by custom, or occasional usage, or even once, was opened, or held open, or forced back as it tended to close, by the placing of hands on the glass panels, so as to charge these defendants with knowledge that the use of inferior glass panels might constitute a hazard to school children in thus using the door.
The plaintiff testified that he was attempting to open further the closing door in the proper manner, by exerting force on the panel bar, so there is no issue of imputed knowledge of children’s proclivities to depart from adult standards of conduct by applying force to the glass. There is no evidence that the door was so constructed that in attempting to open it, or hold it open, or push it further open, by proper use of the panic bar, there was any danger of coming into contact with the glass panel. It would certainly be necessary to show danger in using the panic bar, with reference to the glass panels as located, or a defective bar, to charge the defendants as reasonably prudent persons with being negligent in using an inferior glass.
The issue of defendants’ negligence then must rest upon the proposition, either that the panic bar was so located on the door that the glass panels presented a source of danger to those using the panic bar, or the panic bar was so defective that instead of going downward it remained stationary, and by some means the hand might possibly slip upward. There is no evidence in the record to establish either of these facts. First, the record establishes the panic bar was four or five inches below any glass panels, and second, as previously stated, the plaintiff testified that the panic bar was waist-high; that if pushed downward, the *506force then exerted by the hand at that level from the shoulder is downward to a position on the door where there is no glass. This is in accordance with the established law of physics, and no contrary presumption can be engaged in. Therefore, before the nature of the glass could be considered as a competent factor and not just a condition, it was first necessary to establish some fact upon which a jury could find that in the use of the door, a reasonably prudent person would know, or should know, there was danger of contact with the glass in the opening, holding open, or pushing further open, the door by use of the panic bar. However, all of the evidence relied upon by the majority, if it could be considered, this evidence in my opinion goes only to the fact that it is safer, in case of some negligent act, to use plate glass than double-strength glass in school doors.
In my opinion the majority in reversing this case have crossed the bridge before it was built. I therefore dissent.
Mr. Chief Justice McAllister and Mr. Justice Rossman join in this dissent.