Court Opinion

ID: 9728491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:09:25.815898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:49.133494
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, J.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part). I concur with the majority opinion with respect to defendant Williamson.
The majority concludes that reversal is not mandated for failure to submit this case to the jury under the doctrine of comparative negligence with respect to the cause of action against defendant Walker, on the ground that the trial court should have granted defendant’s motion for directed verdict. I find that the trial court properly refused to grant defendant’s motion, since plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence on the element of defendant’s alleged breach of the legal duty to maintain his premises in a reasonably safe condition to go to a jury.
Evidence of the industry custom of installing an interior ladder was included in plaintiffs’ case in chief. The majority concludes that such evidence was inadmissible, absent any proof that defendant knew or should have been aware of such a practice. However, examination of the record indicates that the practice was so widely followed that defendant may be charged with knowledge of it or with negligent ignorance. Prosser, Law of Torts (4th ed), § 33, p 168. Plaintiff Renold L. Beals, Jr., *237testified that interior access ladders existed in all other grain elevators he had worked on. His employer, a former millwright, gave similar testimony, as did Mr. John Wilson, the millwright who accompanied plaintiff Renold on the day of the accident.
In determining the propriety of the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion, we review the entire record when plaintiffs’ proofs, however slight, create at least a permissible inference of defendant’s negligence. Mitcham v Detroit, 355 Mich 182; 94 NW2d 388 (1959), Whitmore v Sears, Roebuck & Co, 89 Mich App 3; 279 NW2d 318 (1979), lv den 406 Mich 985 (1979). Defendant’s testimony provides additional proof of his own awareness of the need for additional access to the headhouse. Mr. Walker testified that the outside ladder used by plaintiff Renold was an emergency ladder, to be used as a means of fire escape, but that he had, on occasion, used it as an access ladder, and that his employees probably did as well. He further stated that he had personally observed workmen use the ladder as a means of access to the headhouse for cleaning and repair purposes when one man had already used the one-man lift for elevation from the inside. Defendant’s proofs, properly considered here, included evidence which served to bolster the inference of negligence in failing to provide safe conditions for business invitees.
I would affirm the trial court’s denial of defendant Walker’s motion for a directed verdict but reverse for a new trial as to defendant Walker, consistent with Placek v Sterling Heights, 405 Mich 638; 275 NW2d 511 (1979), and Rivers v Ford Motor Co, 90 Mich App 94, 97; 280 NW2d 875 (1979).