Court Opinion

ID: 9626123
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:03:03.87297+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:21.882794
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully suggest that to my mind whether water was on the kitchen floor and was as obvious to plaintiff as to defendants was an appropriate subject of inquiry by a jury.
Article XXIII, Sec. 6, Constitution of Oklahoma, provides that: “The defense of contributory negligence or of assumption of risk shall, in all cases whatsoever, be a question of fact, and shall, at all times, be left to the jury.”
In the case of Safeway Stores, Inc., etc. et al. v. Feeback, Okl., 390 P.2d 519, we held as follows:
“A customer of a retail store injured in a fall caused by slipping on vegetables lying on the store floor may not recover damages from the owner or manager of the store without proof that such vegetables were negligently left there by owner or some employee or had been there for sufficient time after the latter had actual or constructive knowledge thereof to have removed it in the exercise of ordinary care.”
Plaintiff here testified of effect defendant O. L. Dixon swept out the water but did not mop it up. A jury would have been warranted in further finding from the testimony that he knew, or should have known, that more water blew in on the floor, where plaintiff later fell, each time the kitchen door was opened by those returning from the cellar. These facts, to my way of thinking, established a situation which was converse to that in the Safeway Stores, Inc., v. Feeback case, supra, and warranted submission of the case to the jury.
Likewise, I believe it was a situation which was the converse of that in Safeway Stores, Inc., v. Criner, Okl., 380 P.2d 712, and submissible under the rule of the second paragraph of the syllabus thereof.
I consider the case of Jackson v. Land, Okl., 391 P.2d 904, to be distinguishable, because in that case, as recited in the opinion, a crack in the pavement which had existed for years was shown to have been known to plaintiff for some seven months.
In the case of St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. et al. v. Williams, 176 Okl. 465, 56 P.2d 815, this Court said:
“An ‘invitee’ is one who possesses an invitation express or implied.
“Where a person invites or induces, expressly or by implication, another to come upon his premises, whether for business or any other purpose, it is his duty to be reasonably sure that he is not inviting him into danger, and he must use ordinary care and prudence not to injure him.
* * * * * *
“Article 23, § 6, of the Constitution of Oklahoma, is not merely declaratory of the common law, but requires that the defense of contributory negligence as to questions of fact, in all cases whatsoever, shall at all times be left to the jury and the finding of the jury upon this defense is conclusive upon the court.”
See also 65 C.J.S. Negligence § 45 b, Condition of Property, pp. 526-532.
I respectfully dissent.