Court Opinion

ID: 9576198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:21:42.399521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:23.296767
License: Public Domain

Hill, C. J.
This is an action for injuries sustained by the plaintiff, as a result of the breaking of a porcelain faucet *208handle in an apartment occupied by him as a tenant in the defendant’s apartment-hotel. The tenancy was from month to month.
The recent case of Bidlake v. Youell, Inc. (1957), 51 Wn. (2d) 59, 315 P. (2d) 644, while similar in many respects, is not decisive of the present case. It was there decided that it had not been established that it was unreasonably dangerous to use a porcelain faucet handle. There was no evidence or even contention in that case that any amount of inspection would have revealed any defect in the faucet handle, which broke. In the present case, it is contended that the defendant’s manager had been advised that there was a crack in the porcelain faucet handle and that it should be replaced.
The plaintiff seeks to come under the well-recognized exception to the general rule of the landlord’s nonliability for injury from defects, i.e., that the landlord does have a duty to disclose or repair latent defects actually known to him and unknown to the tenant. Mesher v. Osborne (1913), 75 Wash. 439, 447, 134 P. (2d) 1092, 48 L. R. A. (N.S.) 917.
The trial court’s finding VI is:
“That porcelain faucet handles are in general use in the City of Seattle; that porcelain faucet handles are used by the largest chain of hotels having establishments in the State of Washington, including the Olympic Hotel of Seattle, which is uniformly so equipped throughout all its guest rooms; that they are in use in many apartments of quality in the Seattle area; that where porcelain faucet handles have been replaced, such replacement has generally occurred by reason of style or fashion and has not occurred by reason of considerations of safety; that poreclain faucet handles have certain marked advantages over metal faucet handles, which are constructed of plated brass or bronze.”
No error is assigned' to this finding, and it furnishes the answer to any contention that a porcelain faucet handle is dangerous per se.
The evidence supporting the plaintiff’s contention that the defendant had knowledge that the porcelain faucet handle, which broke, was cracked and dangerous, is epit*209omized in the plaintiff’s proposed finding No. V, which was as follows:
“. . . that Peter Sanstol went to plaintiff’s room in response to the complaint and inspected the faucet and immediately reported to defendant manager that there was a crack in the underneath portion of the porcelain faucet handle and that the handle should be replaced . . . that the defendant, its manager or servants failed to do anything about the faucet; that the testimony of Peter Sanstol, defendant’s employee, was undisputed ...”
(It should be noted that the “complaint” referred to in the proposed finding just quoted was about a dripping faucet, and there is no suggestion that the condition of the porcelain handle caused the dripping.)
The trial court refused to make this proposed finding. It, quite obviously, did not believe that Peter Sanstol regarded the condition of the faucet handle as dangerous, or that he reported it to the manager of the apartment-hotel as such, even though his testimony—to quote from the memorandum opinion—“so far as word of mouth is concerned stands undisputed.”
This is the crux of the appeal. There was testimony which, if believed, would have supported a determination of liability. The trial court did not believe that testimony, and, consequently, the plaintiff did not sustain his burden of convincing the trier of the fact that the defendant had knowledge or was chargeable with knowledge that the porcelain faucet handle, which broke, was defective and dangerous to use. The basis of the appeal is that the trial court erred because it did not believe the plaintiff’s key witness, Peter Sanstol.
Even from the “cold record” it is apparent that Sanstol was, as the trial court commented, “quite a willing helper to a cause he believes in.” There is a circumstance which would make us doubt, as the trial court makes clear it did, whether at any time prior to the plaintiff’s accident Sanstol ever believed the faucet handle to be dangerous; and whether he ever so advised the defendant’s manager. That circumstance is that despite an almost father-and-son *210relationship with the plaintiff, testified to by Sanstol, he never advised the plaintiff that it was dangerous to use the porcelain faucet handle. It is not for us, under such circumstances, to tell a trial court or a jury what witnesses should be believed. See Gilmartin v. Stevens Investment Co. (1953), 43 Wn. (2d) 289, 261 P. (2d) 73.
The trial court found (finding No. VII),
“That there was no defect existing in the faucet handle involved herein and known to or discoverable by the defendant, or any of its agents, at the time the plaintiff went into occupancy of Apartment 48; that there was nothing about the condition of said faucet handle from which it could have been determined by visual inspection that the same was in any way dangerous or hazardous; that porcelain appliances are manufactured by firing a clay and then applying and fixing, by a second firing, a glossy glaze thereon; that by virtue of the physics of uniting a surface glaze to the underlying fired clay, chemical stain or surface checking will often result, which has no effect upon the underlying structure or strength of the appliance; that prior to the breaking of the porcelain faucet handle herein and the examination of its interior, nothing in the surface appearance would have disclosed other than a surface check or chemical stain.”
That finding is based on conflicting testimony. We certainly cannot say that the evidence preponderates against the finding.
There is, under the facts as found by the trial court, no obligation or duty on the part of the defendant to either change the porcelain faucet handle, or to warn the plaintiff of possible danger. No duty to act or to warn having been established, there was no breach of duty by the defendant, and the trial court’s order of dismissal is affirmed.
Donworth, Finley, Weaver, Ott, and Foster, JJ., concur.