Court Opinion

ID: 9597545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:00:06.896665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:38.562065
License: Public Domain

HALLEY, Justice
(dissenting).
It is my view of this case that the majority places far too great a burden upon a retail merchant. There is no testimony in the record in this case to show that any employee of the defendant either knew of, or saw the basket setting in the aisle of the store. The plaintiff testified that June Rogers, the manager of the store, was in the aisle ahead of him but it is now undisputed that June Rogers was not in the store at the time of the accident and had not been for some time. When this developed, the plaintiff testified he saw a man with an apron on in the aisle and that he was an employee of the store. His testimony as to the agency was pure conjecture.
Even if there was an employee of the defendant in the aisle ahead of plaintiff it was not shown that the clerk saw the basket. His attention may have been drawn to other conditions or activities in the store.
The rule is not as the majority opinion holds that the defendant is liable if the employee in the exercise of ordinary care saw or should have seen the basket in the aisle. The owner of the store was not an insurer of plaintiff’s safety. His duty was only to exercise ordinary care for the customer’s safety. It is well settled that in order to impose liability for injury to an invitee in a retail store, the dangerous condition must have been known to the owner or his servants, agents or employees, or should have existed a sufficient length of time that they should have known about it in the exercise of ordinary care. 65 C.J. S., Negligence, § 51, and Owen v. Kitterman, 178 Okl. 483, 62 P.2d 1193.
No one testified that the basket was in the aisle when it is said the employee was near where the accident happened. Before he can be charged with negligence he must have seen the basket or it must have been there a sufficient length of time that he should have seen it in the exercise of ordinary care. The basket could have been shoved into the position where the accident happened after the employee had passed it. The record is entirely lacking of any evidence showing in any way how long the basket had been where it was. We have no right to presume it was there at the time and then presume that the employee saw it.
The majority opinion says that plaintiff did not present his case upon the theory that the basket had remained in the aisle for a sufficient time for defendant’s servant to have constructive notice or knowledge and that plaintiff’s case is based solely upon negligence of an employee in being in the aisle near the basket and seeing it, failed to pick it up, or, that this employee being in the aisle, should have seen and removed the basket. This assumes that the basket was in the aisle when the purported employee passed by. There is no evidence that it was there at that time.
I call attention to two cases from other jurisdictions involving somewhat the same facts as the case at bar and to me are quite persuasive. One is Gargaro v. Kroger Grocery & Baking Co., 22 Tenn.App. 70, 118 S.W.2d 561, 563, wherein a basket was in the aisle as here but the evidence showed that it was placed there by a customer for a period of twenty to thirty minutes before plaintiff fell over it. The general duties of an operator of a retail store are set out in the opinion and I quote from it:
“The proprietor, owner, or management of a retail store such as that operated by the defendant in this case is under an obligation to exercise ordinary care and diligence to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition for the patrons or customers of the *223store, who enter and remain therein as invitees. Such a proprietor or owner is not an insurer of the safety of customers in the store, but is liable only if injury results from a breach of the duty to use or exercise ordinary care for their safety and protection. Such is the rule in Tennessee, and it is well nigh, universal in America. Buckeye Cotton Oil Co. v. Campagna, 146 Tenn. 389, 394, 242 S.W. 646; Loew’s Nashville & Knoxville Corp. v. Durrett, 18 Tenn.App. 489, 79 S.W.2d 598; Bennett v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 102 U.S. 577, 26 L.Ed. 235; Armstrong v. Kroger Grocery & Baking Co., Mo. App., 78 S.W.2d 564; S. S. Kresge Co. v. Fader, 116 Ohio St. 718, 158 N.E. 174, 58 A.L.R. 132; Annotations, 61 A.L.R. 1289.”
The other case is Casciaro v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 238 Mo.App. 361, 183 S.W.2d 833, 837, wherein the plaintiff fell over some boxes in the aisle of a retail store. In that case a judgment for the plaintiff was reversed. On the point pertinent to this case this was said:
“Although defendant owed to plaintiff the duty to exercise ordinary care to keep and maintain the aisles of its store in a reasonably safe condition for his use as its invitee, it was not an insurer of plaintiff’s safety while he was in the store. Defendant could be held to be liable only if, by failure to exercise ordinary care, it placed the boxes in the aisle in such a position as to render the aisle not reasonably safe for the use of its customers, or if it permitted the boxes to remain there after it knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care could have known, of their presence for a sufficient length of time wherein by the exercise of ordinary care it could have removed them and thus have rendered the aisle reasonably safe. Robinson v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 347 Mo. 421, 423, 147 S.W.2d 648, 649, 650.”
There was a total absence of evidence on the “lapse of time” in the case at bar. The mere fact that a person preceded plaintiff up the aisle who plaintiff thought was an employee of the defendant is no evidence as to the time the basket had been on the floor or evidence that that person saw the basket. Certainly liability should not attach to the defendant on the ground that an employee should have seen the basket when no evidence was introduced showing how long the basket was on the floor. The existence for a fleeting moment certainly should not fix liability upon the employer. On this point I quote from Owen v. Beauchamp, 66 Cal.App.2d 750, 152 P.2d 756, 757:
“When there is evidence that the dangerous condition existed and that invitor had caused it or should have known of its presence by reason of the lapse of time, then the fact of liability is to be determined from all of the evidence. But in the absence of such proof it is the duty of the court to direct a verdict for the defendant.
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The plaintiff saw no basket in the aisle when he went to the rear of the store. To hold defendant liable in this case would make him an -insurer of the safety of his patrons. We have not as yet put that burden upon a retail merchant.
There are many more errors in this case but I will not attempt to enumerate or discuss them for I think that the lack of any evidence to show how long the basket had been in the aisle necessitated the sustaining of the demurrer of the defendant to the evidence. I dissent.