Eyler v. Adolph Beauty System, Inc.

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. “A party cannot walk upon an obstruction which has been made by the fault of another and avail himself of it, if he did not himself use common and ordinary caution.” Sugar v. Traub, 233 Md. 320, 323 , quoting Sutton v. Baltimore, 214 Md. 581, 584 . Judge Menchine felt the appellant to be in the position of the party in the quotation and made him understandably unhappy by taking from him the fruits of a jury’s verdict in his favor, by the granting of a judgment n.o.v. We think he was right in so doing. Appellant went out on a very cold February evening to replenish the family larder at a supermarket in a shopping center. He took with him his twenty-two months old son and his two daughters, one seven and one five.

After parking the car he set out across a thirty-five-foot street for the supermarket, with the boy in his left arm and a six-pack of empty returnable bottles in his right hand. The two girls trotted along at his right. The street was icy and there was ice in the gutter at the far curb. The sidewalk he was approaching at the far side ²²⁹ of the street was free of ice and snow for a width of twenty-four inches from the curb.

Beginning at that point, a strip of frozen snow or ice from twelve to eighteen inches wide and from two to twelve inches high stretched along the sidewalk parallel with the curb. Beyond the ridge of frozen matter the sidewalk again was clear and clean. The area was well lighted and, despite the fact that the appellant knew that ice was prevalent and actually took note of the ridge on the sidewalk, he stepped on it and fell, suffering serious and painful injuries. He sued the owner of the shopping center and the owners of the two stores in front of which the ice ridge ran.

Judge Menchine,