Court Opinion

ID: 9768454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:03:45.299019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:43.540442
License: Public Domain

JONES, Special Judge
(dissenting).
Judge MATTHES’ opinion in holding that the deposition' of Bernice Chelist was taken pursuant to legal notice, properly admitted into evidence and that plaintiff was not disqualified .from testifying as to all matters antedating the death of Bernice Chelist follows the spirit of1 the law,, and I concur, with said finding. However, I do not concur in Judge MATTHES’ opinion in holding that the judgment should be reversed but believe that there was sufficient evidence to make a jury question and that the jury was correctly instructed on the relationship existing between plaintiff and Bernice Chelist as to what care and duty the latter owed the plaintiff.
It is my opinion that the evidence definitely shows that plaintiff was called by Bernice Chelist, her sister, and requested her to come over and take her' (Bernice Chelist) for a ride, and “we would have lunch together”.
■A reading of the briefs filed by counsel shows that appellant had plaintiff admit that the visit was more or less social, however, the evidence remains that the visit was made at the request and invitation of Bernice Chelist (host), .and in the opinion of this writer, plaintiff was, in every-day language, an invitee-by invitation and request to the home of Bernice Chelist and not a licensee.
Once having determined this question, it then was the duty of the said Bernice Chelist “to use ordinary care to prevent injury to plaintiff”.' From a reading of the record, the host, Bernice Chelist, testified by deposition that she had, the night before, thrown some hamburger out for the cat and had told the girl to “mop up the porch’’, but the porch had not been cleaned.
This writer is of the opinion that it was a jury question as to whether the host, Bernice Chelist, had used ordinary care to prevent injury to plaintiff, and it is the further opinion of this writer that if she had not believed it was necessary to clean up the porch after throwing the cat meat out on said porch, then why did she so instruct the girl to mop up the porch. Was this not “active negligence” on the part of the host?. This writer believes that it was as she, the host, knew of the condition and plaintiff did not, nor had the host warned plaintiff of such condition. Did she not *49recognize the danger to one;, and failing to remove or warn her guest of this danger, would she not then be guilty of “active negligence” ? It is, however, my opinion that the plaintiff was an invitee, 'and following the opinion of the late Judge Lamm in Glaser v. Rothschild, 221 Mo. 108, 120 S.W. 1, loc. cit. 3:
“The situation, with reference to liability, radically changes when the owner invites the use of his premises for purposes connected with his own benefit, pleasure, and convenience. * * * The rule applicable to that change is that- a licensee, who goes upon the premises of another by that other’s invitation' and for that other’s purposes is no longer a bare licensee. He becomes an invitee, and the duty to take ordinary care to prevent his injury is at once raised, and for the breach of that duty an action lies.”
Although .it is admitted by this, writer that the facts in the case of Glaser versus Rothschild were different in that said relationship between plaintiff and defendant-was one of a business visitor to a house of business, and for some reason which-this writer cannot follow, the duty on a business house to a business visitor should be different than the duty toward a guest of a private dwelling. Also see Twine v. Norris Grain Company, Kansas City Court of Appeals, 226 S.W.2d 415, loc. cit. 421.
It is this writer’s opinion that the occupier of a dwelling house owes the duty to use -ordinary care towards -his social guest, who is present at the expressed invitation of the host and for the host’s benefit, and it would naturally follow that the charge of ordinary care to the jury would be:
“By ordinary care as used in these instructions is meant such care as persons of . ordinary, prudence y/ould exercise under the same or similar circumstances.”,
and, therefore, the jury would determine what ordinary care would be under same and similar’circumstances and would, more than likely, conclude that ordinary care as used by a business house would be greater than the ordinary care required - in. a private dwelling. ■
And Therefore, this writer cannot concur in the conclusion reached by Judge MATTHES that plaintiff failed to make a submissible'-case and that defendant’s motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained, but is. of the opinion that the judgment should be affirmed.
Deeming the opinion of the majority in conflict with the decision of the Supreme Court in Glaser v. Rothschild, the case should be certified to the Supreme Court pursuant to Article 5, § 10 of the Constitution of Missouri 1945, V.AM.S.
PER CURIAM.
The opinion in this case reversing the decision below being deemed by Judge Douglas L. C. JONES, Special Judge herein, to be -contrary to- a previous decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri, the case is hereby transferred for final determination to the Supreme Court of Missouri.