Moffitt v. Ford Motor Co.

In the main, we adopt appellant’s statement of the case, but because of a few deletions and changes we do not use quotation marks.

The appeal is by the defendant Ford Motor Company, a Delaware corporation, from a judgment for $16,573.63, after jury verdict in an action for personal injuries.

The complaint in the action was filed December 1, 1928, and was directed against a number of defendants. It alleged that the defendants conducted an exhibition designated the Ford Show, commencing December 2, 1927, at tire auditorium on the grounds of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and that plaintiff attended the exhibition at the invitation of the defendant and was injured while utilizing an exit from the auditorium. The prayer, as afterwards amended, sought total damages in the sum of $56,573.63, to wit: $6,573.63 special damages for medical and allied expenses, and $50,000 general damages. The complaint in its final form also alleged negligence in the following respects: “The general level of the floor at the exit was approximately 13% inches above the general ground level immediately outside the exit. The surface of the ground immediately outside the exit was rough and uneven.” The answer of the defendant Ford Motor Company admitted its corporate capacity and entity, and was a general denial as to the other allegations of the complaint in its final form, with the special defense of contributory negligence.

The trial resulting in the present judgment was the second one. The first trial was had in October, 1929, and resulted in the court’s granting defendant’s motion for non-suit upon the opening statement of plaintiff’s counsel. On January 10, 1930, plaintiff’s motion for a new trial was

The defendant Ford Motor Company concedes on the appeal that it conducted the exhibition designated the 1 ‘ Ford Show”. It concedes that plaintiff attended the exhibition at its invitation, and that its duly authorized agents directed plaintiff to retire by the exit at which she was injured. It also concedes that plaintiff incurred $6,573.63 medical and allied expenses as the result of her injuries.

The appellant relies upon the following points for reversal of the judgment: (1) The judgment lacks evidentiary support for the reason that the evidence fails to establish that any breach of duty by the defendant Ford Motor Company proximately caused or contributed to plaintiff’s injury. (2) Prejudicial misconduct and reversible error committed by plaintiff’s counsel at the trial, in bringing before the jury the fact that the defendant Ford Motor Company was protected by liability insurance in connection with the Ford Show. (3) The jury was misled to the prejudice of the defendant Ford Motor Company by instructions erroneously charging such defendant with the duty of keeping the passageways from the Ambassador auditorium in absolutely safe condition, and erroneously charging such defendant with lia

With the advent of the model A Ford in 1927 the Ford Motor Company arranged exhibitions for the display of the new product throughout the United States. The exhibition in Los Angeles was conducted at the auditorium on the grounds of the Ambassador Hotel, and for that purpose the auditorium was rented for a period of four days commencing December 2, 1927. A general invitation was extended to the public to attend the exhibition, and the doors were opened for their patronage on December 2d at about 10:30 A. M. Approximately 65,000 people attended the exhibition that day. They were admitted through the main entrance in the east wall of the auditorium, and until about 3 P. M. departed through doors adjacent to the main entrance. As the day advanced the crowds became congested, and around 3 P. M. doors (used ordinarily for freight) were opened in the south wall of the auditorium for the exit of patrons. At the southeast door thus opened there was a step down approximately 13 inches high, and the ground outside was not paved, but was in a somewhat natural state, with hard clods of dirt and rocks present. During the day some unidentified person or persons carried on grading operations to the south of the southeast door, but no fresh dirt was deposited within 20 feet of the door. Between the hours of 3 P. M. and 4 P. M. of December 2, 1927, vast crowds retired from the auditorium by the southeast door, and after using the step down turned either to the left and passed to a sidewalk about 40 feet away or turned to the right and passed to an alley leading out to Eighth Street. From the record it does not appear that any patron other than plaintiff was injured in using the southeast exit.

Accepting the general invitation, plaintiff entered the exhibition through the main entrance at about 3 P. M. of December 2d, and after viewing the exhibition was directed to retire from the auditorium by the southeast exit. She was 73 years old and unescorted. About 4 P. M. she started out the southeast exit with some 25 to 40 other patrons. She stepped down from the auditorium floor to the ground out

Herein we treat appellant’s first point, to wit: The judgment lacks evidentiary support for the reason that the evidence fails to establish that any breach of duty by the defendant Ford Motor Company proximately caused or contributed to plaintiff's injury.

Following the method of appellant in presenting its argument we shall at once agree in intent with the text of its brief, but not with the exact wording, wherein it states the following: “Under settled and governing law the appellant owed to its invitee the duty of maintaining the .auditorium and its immediate approaches in a reasonably safe condition, and of exercising reasonable care in protecting her from injury. This duty, however, under equally settled and governing law was not absolute. The appellant was not an insurer of the safety of its invitee. It was not bound at its peril to keep the auditorium and its approaches absolutely safe. Its duty depended upon whether or not it had express or implied notice that a dangerous condition ex

Quoting from the testimony of Police Officer Charles C. Kagley: “The ground was rather uneven and bumpy out there; it wasn’t just smooth, where you stepped from onto it.” Lawrence A. Valli, an employee of Ford Motor Company, likewise testified: “Q. Can you state what was the condition there of the landing immediately outside of the step? A. Immediately outside of the step the ground was rough and clods and dirt and rocks over on the ground there. Q. Can you state whether the clods of dirt that were there appeared to be hard or soft ? A. They appeared to be hard.” The shoe mentioned had a tear in the cloth covering the heel. Appellant then proceeds to present in his brief those cases holding that an accident caused by the presence of a foreign substance on a floor, or by a faulty condition of a floor covering, is not enough upon which to base a recovery for resulting injuries. It must also be shown that the invitor knew or by reason of the circumstances obtaining should have known the facts, and in time for him to have cured the fault. Appellant contends that the evidence in the instant case shows that there was some

We are bound to resolve every reasonable question as to the meaning of the evidence in favor of the verdict. Respondent was directed to leave the auditorium by a different door than she entered. She was in a crowd where the people were close enough to touch each other. She observed a step down and took it, but it was much more than an ordinary step down. The ground upon which all of the pedestrians leaving that door were compelled to step was loose and cloddy. She stepped down and with that step—not a subsequent one—she fell, injured. The felt covering of her shoe heel was torn, her ankle had turned. There was no need here for the jury to have believed that some foreign substance such as someone might have dropped there was the cause of the fall and injury. Knowledge as to the condition of the rough landing and extra height of the step is not denied by appellant. Respondent, an elderly lady and unattended, followed directions and with the crowd stepped down an unreasonably long or high step onto a rough, cloddy, earthen surface. She was precipitated to the ground and injured. Can it be that because the injured one cannot swear just what piece of hard substance resisted the pressure she put upon it as she let herself down, appellant is for that reason relieved from any and all responsibility? We think not. The clods were sufficient to have caused the turn of the ankle. Appellant knew the clods were there. Comparing the situation with the floor scrap cases, it is plain that one falling upon the floor from a slip, scraps being on the floor, would not have to positively identify the exact scrap her foot pressed upon. These conditions and circumstances would present the question to the jury "as to whether or not the scraps caused the fall.

The "second point upon which appellant seeks a reversal of the judgment is expressed in the opening brief as follows: “Prejudicial misconduct and reversible error was committed by plaintiff’s counsel at the trial in bringing before the jury the fact that the defendant Ford Motor

Upon the occurrence of the above an objection was interposed, but not in time to prevent an answer to the question put by respondent’s counsel. The court ordered the answer stricken and that the objection should precede the answer in the record. Counsel and the court then retired to the court’s chambers, and without the jury’s presence counsel for appellant moved that the court declare a mistrial on the ground of misconduct of counsel for respondent in bringing in the insurance question. This motion was denied and nothing further regarding the incident was done. It has

Counsel for respondent was within the legitimate limits of cross-examination and there is nothing whatever to indicate that counsel had any idea that the answer would be related to the touchy question of liability insurance. The situation was very different from Squires v. Riffe, 211 Cal. 370 [ 295 Pac. 517 ], or Citti v. Bava, 204 Cal. 136 [ 266 Pac. 954 ]. We do not understand any of the cases to go so far as to make the introduction of the subject of liability insurance fatal to a trial where it enters the case in a legitimate manner and for a legitimate purpose. A reading of the cases cited by appellant will disclose no such ruling. But they all show that the harm came from plaintiff’s own examination. It may also be remarked that the answer did not necessarily mean indemnity insurance to the patrons of the show; it might have meant, as respondent suggests in her brief, employer’s liability insurance. (Rising v. Veatch, 117 Cal. App. 404 [ 3 Pac. (2d) 1023 ]; Dullanty v. Smith, 203 Cal. 621 [ 265 Pac. 814 ]; Lahti v. McMenamin, 204 Cal. 415 [ 268 Pac. 642 ]; Hodge v. Weinstock, Lubin & Co., 109 Cal. App. 393 [ 293 Pac. 80 ]; Noble v. Bacon, 129 Cal. App. 177 [ 18 Pac. (2d) 699 ].)

Herein we shall consider appellant’s exception to claimed defective instructions. The two instructions claimed

“If you find from the evidence that defendants or any of them were engaged in conducting a Ford Show which they or any of them invited the public to visit or patronize, then I instruct you that it was the duty of the defendants conducting such show to keep the entrances and passageways to and from the premises as so occupied and used by them in a safe condition and to use ordinary care to avoid accidents or injury to those properly and lawfully entering upon or leaving the premises through such entrances or passageways in connection with visiting such show.”

“If you find that the entrance or passageway at which it is alleged plaintiff was injured was in an unsafe and dangerous condition and that such condition was the proximate cause of the injuries to plaintiff, the defendants, if any, engaged in conducting said Show' are liable therefor if their managers, officers, or agents knew of such alleged condition, or if, as careful and pi'udent men, they should have known it, provided that plaintiff was in the exercise of ordinary care.”

There is no doubt whatever but that the first-quoted instruction misstates the law, though it is exactly what appellant concedes in our opening quotation from his brief. Appellant is correct when it says later on in its brief that it is the duty of the appellant to exercise reasonable care to keep the premises in a safe condition rather than its duty to keep them in a safe condition. (Mautino v. Sutter Hosp. Assn., 211 Cal. 556 [ 296 Pac. 76 ].) But we think this error could not have affected appellant for reasons which we shall particularize in our comment upon both criticised instructions.

As to the second quoted instruction appellant registers three complaints: That it repeats the error of the first criticised instruction; that it makes appellant responsible for the information of “managers, officers, or agents”, whereas in fact it is responsible only for knowledge of such within their scope of authority; that it omits the necessary

A reading of all the given instructions in narrative reveals numerous statements of the correct rule on all of the points objected to by appellant and it would hardly seem possible that the jury could have misunderstood the law upon any of these points. Of course, we understand that even section 4½ of article VI of the Constitution will not relieve mistaken and erroneous instructions where the issue is such that the jury could very well have followed an erroneous course through an erroneous direction of an instruction, but such is not the ease here.

We are convinced that an erroneous premise as to fact has been assumed by appellant for his analysis of this case. Appellant bases his case upon the theory that some foreign substance on the ground caused the accident. By foreign substance he means something other than the effect of the over-high step and something other than the hard clods of dirt and rocks in the rough ground upon -which respondent, in a close crowd, was directed to step. In this, as previously herein made plain, we regard appellant as in error. Looking at these instructions in the light that we have explained and in which the jury had a right to view them, no harm was suffered by the terms of the two criticised instructions for the following reasons: There is no issue in the case as to the step from the auditorium door sill to the ground being almost twice as high as an ordinary one. There is no issue as to whether or not the ground immediately under and away from this step was rough, and contained hard clods and rocks. There is no issue as to the knowledge of appellant that this condition existed. It is apparent that appellant could not direct people to pour out of a freight door, over an unusually high step to a rough, cloddy and rocky terrain, and excuse itself from liability for resulting injuries by saying, “I have no responsibility in the matter; I knew nothing about these things.” It was. its duty to know. Therefore the difference between the expressions “duty to keep the premises safe” and “duty to use reasonable care to keep them safe” can make no difference in this case. It is apparent that appellant knew of the dangerous condition, and that it. left it that way and made no attempt to remedy

The conceded special damages leaves an even $10,-000 general award. In view of all of the facts of the case we cannot say that the size of this award shows that it was arrived at through passion, prejudice, sympathy or misunderstanding.

The judgment is affirmed.

Craig, J., and Archbald, J., pro tem., concurred.

A petition by appellant to have the cause heard in the Supreme Court, after judgment in the District Court of Appeal, was denied by the Supreme Court on December 28, 1933.