Court Opinion

ID: 9863836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 05:54:59.260151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:21.804361
License: Public Domain

WOOD, J., Dissenting.
I dissent.
In my opinion the question of the alleged negligence of defendant should have been submitted to the jury. The *406steps upon which plaintiff slipped had been allowed to become slick and smooth and had remained in that condition for a long time notwithstanding bathers had frequently-dampened them. At the time of the accident the steps were “damp in some places and dry in others”; there were spots of water which appeared to have been made by wet feet. The case of Gold v. Arizona Realty etc. Co., cited in the majority opinion, can be readily distinguished. In that case the plaintiff slipped upon some substance which had been placed or left in some manner upon a stairway and it was not shown that the substance had been left on the stairway for a sufficient length of time to charge the defendant with notice. The judgment of the court was based upon the following statement which appears in the opinion: “It was not shown that the ‘substance’ which caused plaintiff’s fall had been on the stairway any length of time or that it had been left there by an agent of defendant”.
In my opinion the question of the alleged contributory negligence of plaintiff should have been submitted to the jury. Plaintiff testified that she had not used the stairway for “fully a year” before the accident; that she was not accustomed to bathing at the pool; that the steps were “neutral in color . . . sort of a tan”; that the steps appeared to be dry; that she noticed nothing unusual or extraordinary about the surface of the steps. Plaintiff was not guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.