Court Opinion

ID: 9448842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:45:58.768409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:34.058153
License: Public Domain

SHACKELFORD MILLER, Jr., Chief Judge
(dissenting).
As stated in the majority opinion, the plaintiff in this action, under the following decisions of the Supreme Court of Michigan, would be guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, which would bar his recovery. Larned v. Vanderlinde, 165 Mich. 464, 131 N.W. 165; Evans v. Orttenburger, 242 Mich. 57, 217 N.W. 753; Blankertz v. Mack & Co., 263 *140Mich 527, 248 N.W. 889; Elliott v. Dahl, 299 Mich. 380, 300 N.W. 132.
The majority opinion, however, expresses the view that recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Michigan require that the issue of plaintiff’s contributory negligence under the facts of this case be submitted to the jury. I recognize that they have probably liberalized the rule on such an issue in favor of a plaintiff. But, accepting the rulings in those cases as being the present Michigan law on the subject, I believe the factual situation in the present case is so materially different from what was before the Court in those cases as to cause us to adhere to the rulings in the earlier Michigan cases above referred to, rather than to submit the issue to the jury. Several of the cases cited involve automobile accidents involving moving vehicles, which I think present a materially different factual situation from that in the present case. Normand v. Thomas Theatre Corp., 349 Mich. 50, 84 N.W. 2d 451, where the plaintiff fell down an unlighted stairway while groping in the dark for a light switch, is factually similar, but differs in the most important fact that the plaintiff did not know of the existence of the stairs down which she fell. In the present case the plaintiff knew the grease pit was there. He stood beside it for ten or fifteen minutes. His vision was normal, and irrespective of whether the light was bright or “dim,” he testified that he saw the pit and that he knew he was walking beside it. The width of the walkway between the pits was a little over 6 feet, affording plenty of room to avoid the pit. He testified that he started to walk down the center of it. If he veered substantially to the right so as to bring him to the edge of the pit with the resulting accident, it was his own voluntary action, heedless of his own safety. With the known danger of the open pit on his right, it was clearly his duty to watch where he was walking. Obviously, he did not do so. He did not claim that he slipped on a wet, icy, or greasy walkway. He testified, “as we got to the corner here, I just landed in the pit at the bottom. I don’t know what happened.”
It was stated in Elliott v. Dahl, supra, 299 Mich. 380, 382, 300 N.W. 132, 133, “This court is definitely committed to the holding that one going about in public places or semipublic places, when possessed of his natural faculties, may not escape being charged with negligence if he is heedless of his own safety. If he fails to use the care that an ordinarily careful person would have used in like surroundings, and in consequence sustains injury, he must bear his own misfortune.”
I am of the opinion that the judgment should be reversed.