Eberle v. Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel
Eberle v. Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Angel
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I am unable to agree with my associates’ interpretation of the evidence and the law applicable thereto as set out in the majority opinion.
At the time of the injury plaintiff was 13 years old. He was attending as a student St. Paul’s Parochial School located near Silverton, Oregon. The injury occurred when plaintiff, along with other members of his class, was leaving the school building at the end of the school day on March 15,1960. The school’s front exit consisted of a double wooden door which opened outward at the center. The doors contained four glass panels. These panels were four or five inches above the mechanism by which the door was opened. The mechanism by which the door was to be opened was a bar extending across the door, and by exerting pressure in a downward manner, the latch was lifted and the door would open outward. The bar which was hinged so that it always went downward when pressure was applied was described as a panic bar.
Plaintiff testified that he was following another boy who had opened the door; that the door was closing as he reached it; that he reached for the panic bar, which was “more or less” at his “stomach level”; that his hand slipped off of the bar, and in some unexplained way, went upward and through the glass door. There is no evidence that the panic bar was, or ever had been slippery, or that it failed to move downward when pressure was applied.
The majority discuss only the allegation of the complaint that the defendant was negligent in “failing to
I agree that the plaintiff was at the time of his injury an invitee on the premises owned and operated by the defendants.
Comment f of 2 Eestatement of Torts, § 343, page 944, to which reference is made by the majority, has no application whatever to this case. Comment f, as shown by the subject and the example, deals with “Appliances used on land” such as “providing a gas stove to be used in an unventilated bathroom.” There is no evidence in this case of any appliance being furnished to the plaintiff for his use that might cause injury. The sole question is whether a door with glass panels used as an integral part of the premises constituted a dangerous condition. Section 343 of the Eestatement of Torts, chapter 13 at page 938, is as follows:
“A possessor of land is subject to liability for bodily harm caused to business visitors by a natural or artificial condition thereon if, but only if, he
(a) knows, or by the exercise of reasonable care could discover, the condition which, if known to him, he should realize as involving an unreasonable risk to them, and
(b) has no reason to believe that they will discover the condition or realize the risk involved therein, and
(c) invites or permits them to enter or remain upon the land without exercising reasonable care
(i) to make the condition reasonably safe, or
(ii) to give a warning adequate to enable them to avoid the harm without relin*504 quisling any of the services which they are entitled to receive, if the possessor is a public utility.” (Emphasis mine.)
This is the rule of law followed in this state as applicable to public places which the public is invited to use. Gow v. Multnomah Hotel, Inc., 191 Or 45, 224 P2d 552, 228 P2d 791. Thus, under the facts of this case, and the pertinent law, the question of fact to be answered is whether or not the defendants knew or should have known that the use of double-strength glass in the type of door built and equipped as it was with a panic bar, upon which force was to be exerted downward, constituted an unreasonable risk of injury to the pupils of the school.
The defendants are not insurers of absolute safety, and are not required to guard against the mere possibility of an accident, but only those hazards which a reasonably prudent person in the position of the defendants could reasonably be required to anticipate from the use of the premises in a proper manner by a pupil. Waller v. N. P. Terminal Co. of Oregon, 178 Or 274, 166 P2d 488. That there is no evidence upon this fact is demonstrated by the record in this case. First, there is not an iota of evidence that if the door was used in the manner in which it was intended that it should be used, either in opening, or holding it open, that the glass, whatever its nature, constituted any hazard to any user of the door. Therefore, before it can be said that the use of glass of any nature constituted negligence, it must first be shown that the manner in which the door was used was known, or should have teen known, to the defendants, as reasonable operators of the school, so that the using of an inferior glass under these circumstances would con
There is absolutely no evidence that this door, by custom, or occasional usage, or even once, was opened, or held open, or forced back as it tended to close, by the placing of hands on the glass panels, so as to charge these defendants with knowledge that the use of inferior glass panels might constitute a hazard to school children in thus using the door.
The plaintiff testified that he was attempting to open further the closing door in the proper manner, by exerting force on the panel bar, so there is no issue of imputed knowledge of children’s proclivities to depart from adult standards of conduct by applying force to the glass. There is no evidence that the door was so constructed that in attempting to open it, or hold it open, or push it further open, by proper use of the panic bar, there was any danger of coming into contact with the glass panel. It would certainly be necessary to show danger in using the panic bar, with reference to the glass panels as located, or a defective bar, to charge the defendants as reasonably prudent persons with being negligent in using an inferior glass.
The issue of defendants’ negligence then must rest upon the proposition, either that the panic bar was so located on the door that the glass panels presented a source of danger to those using the panic bar, or the panic bar was so defective that instead of going downward it remained stationary, and by some means the hand might possibly slip upward. There is no evidence in the record to establish either of these facts. First, the record establishes the panic bar was four or five inches below any glass panels, and second, as previously stated, the plaintiff testified that the panic bar was waist-high; that if pushed downward, the
In my opinion the majority in reversing this case have crossed the bridge before it was built. I therefore dissent.
Opinion of the Court
This is an action for damages against the owners and operators of a private school. The 13-year-old plaintiff-student received a hand injury when he attempted to hold open a door and his hand slipped off the bar, against a glass panel in the door and broke it. The trial court directed a verdict for the defendants.
The accident occurred in 1960 at the front exit doors of St. Paul’s School. The exit consists of a double wooden door which opens outward at the center. The doors contain several glass panels with a panic bar running across the middle part of the door, four and one-half inches below the lowest panel of glass. To open the door the panic bar is pushed downward.
The injury occurred when the plaintiff and his classmates were leaving at the end of the day. Plain
The defendant Archdiocese owns the school. It is operated by the defendant Benedictine Sisters.
The principal issue concerns the following allegation of negligence:
“8. In failing to install plate glass in the front doors being used by pupils or otherwise properly keeping the glass from breaking in said doors; * # * J3
The glass panel that was broken was constructed of “double strength” glass, not plate glass.
It is concluded that the trial court was in error in directing a verdict for the defendants.
We conclude that there was testimony from which the jury could find that reasonably prudent school administrators would know that double-strength glass door panels were unsafe.
The plaintiff has the status of an invitee or business visitor. Briggs v. John Yeon Co., 168 Or 239, 122 P2d 444; 2 Restatement 897, Torts §332. As such, the defendants owe him a duty of reasonable care in the construction and maintenance of the building. Gow v. Multnomah Hotel, Inc., 191 Or 45, 49, 224 P2d 552, 228 P2d 791.
2 Restatement 939, Torts § 343, Comment a, states the distinction between the duty owed a licensee and business visitor as follows:
“* * * a licensee is entitled to expect noth*499 ing more than an honest disclosure of the dangers which are known to the possessor. * * * Such a [business] visitor is entitled to expect that the possessor will take reasonable care to discover the actual condition of the premises and either make them safe or warn him of dangerous conditions. * *
Comment f states:
“A possessor who holds his land open to others for his own business purposes, must possess and exercise a knowledge of the dangerous qualities of the place itself and the appliances provided therein, which is not required of his patrons. * * * This is so because the boarding house keeper, even though a man of the same class as his boarders, is required to have a superior 1m owl - edge of the dangers incident to the facilities which he furnishes to them.”
An architect was called as a witness by plaintiff. He testified he was familiar with school construction in the Willamette Valley since 1952. He stated that the “standard or usage of glass in doors of public buildings, as distinguished from private homes generally in this area” was quarter-inch plate glass. He further testified that quarter-inch plate glass was four times as strong as double-strength glass. He gave the opinion that the minimum safe glass thickness in the St. Paul School doors would be one-quarter-inch plate and this was for safety “from a breakage standpoint.”
Ordinarily, when there is any testimony that a material is unsafe and not up to the standard used in the community it is a jury question whether or not the persons using such material, as reasonably prudent persons, should know that the material is unsafe. See cases collected in 2 Harper and James, The Law of Torts, 907, § 16.5, and the text at 916.
However, the court referred to facts in the Doherty case which are materially different than those here. At page 380 the court observed: “The testimony of the four plumbing contractors indicates that porcelain handles were in general, if not universal, use until several years ago” and “porcelain handles are [now] in common use.” (at 388) “None of the witnesses claimed that porcelain handles which remained in satisfactory condition were replaced with metal handles.” (at 381).
At 391 the court summarized: “Hence,- the fact that most of the buildings possess metal handles is nothing more than a repetition of the industry’s practice as distinguished from the voice of common experience. As we have already pointed out, even the industry had not formed a practice adversé -to porcelain handles until a few years before the plaintiff’s injury
Here, there is specific testimony that the standard for glass in the doors of public buildings is glass at least four times as strong as that used in the door of St. Paul’s School and insertion of this glass is common usage. The reason for this was not price, appearance, etc., but safety.
Apart from the testimony about the respective use of porcelain and metal handles there was evidence in the Doherty case that porcelain handles which were apt to break could be identified before they broke. A plumber testified: “If the handle is not checked or cracked, I would say there was no danger to it.” (170 Or, supra, at 379) The maids who cleaned the room and used the handle daily observed no defect in it. Neither did the plaintiff who had occupied the room one month and 14 days before the accident. No comparable evidence is present in this case.
The Doherty case is not controlling. There was evidence here that defendants were negligent.
The defendant Benedictine Sisters contend that as they are not the owners of the buildings, they are not responsible for the condition of the door panels. The superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese testified that the Benedictine Sisters operated the school for the Archdiocese. He stated that repairs to the physical plant were a joint responsibility of the Archdiocese and the Benedictine Sisters. This evidence makes thé responsibility of the Benedictine Sisters a question for the jury.
Judgment reversed and remanded.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- EBERLE v. BENEDICTINE SISTERS OF MT. ANGEL Et Al
- Cited By
- 8 cases
- Status
- Published