Court Opinion

ID: 9444791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:11:51.798699+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:00.148145
License: Public Domain

WOODBURY, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part with Chief Judge MA-GRUDER).
■ I am unable to persuade either of my colleagues to the view that the judgment below should be vacated and the case remanded with directions to enter a judgment for the defendant. In my opinion, if the decedent was not guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, at least as a matter of law the defendant was under no duty to warn him, as a gratuitous licensee, not to attempt to filch drinks out of any beer bottles he might run across in the course of his wanderings about the premises, particularly opened beer bottles discovered on a bench in a bucket with overalls, rags, and packages .of soda in the water department shop, which, according to undisputed evidence, was not used either by the men who worked therein or by anyone else as a place of resort for the purpose of drinking beer.
£9] Since neither of my colleagues agrees with me in this, and since I agree with Chief Judge MAGRUDER that in any event the charge was erroneous in its definition of the duty owed a gratuitous licensee, I join with him to make a majority of the court in favor of vacating the judgment and remanding the case for a new trial with appropriate instructions.
The judgment of the District Court is vacated, the verdict is set aside, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with the holdings of this court as disclosed in the foregoing opinions.