Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Hairston

HENDERSON, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Olivia L. Hairston fell and broke her leg while shopping in a store of Montgomery Ward & Co., Incorporated in ⁵⁹⁷ Salisbury on October 3, 1947. She recovered a judgment of $1,000 after trial before the court and a jury in Somerset County, to which county her case had been removed. The appellant contends that the case should have been taken from the jury, or that the court should have granted its motion for judgment N. O. V. The plaintiff testified that she slipped and fell at the foot of stairs leading to the second floor, and that after she fell she observed a spot about as large as a dinner plate covered with an “oily, greenish, grayish substance”, in which her left heel had left a mark.

She could not say what the substance was, or how long it had been there. A number of witnesses for the defendant, including two customers who saw the plaintiff fall, testified that she slipped on the third step. They all testified that they examined the steps and floor and found no foreign matter there. It was shown that no oily or greasy articles were sold in that part of the store, the articles on sale there being dry goods and clothing.

The floor covering was “terrazzo”, a smooth, stone-like material, which is not oiled or waxed but is cleaned with a yarn mop to take up the dust. The premises had been thoroughly cleaned after the store closed the previous night, and had been mopped with a dry mop on the morning of the accident. The accident occurred at about 12:30 p.m. A store-keeper is not an insurer but owes a duty to business invitees to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition and to remove hazards of which he has actual knowledge or which have continued long enough to charge him with constructive notice of their existence.

Restatement, Torts § 343 (a); Moore v. American Stores Co., 169 Md. 541, 551 , 182 A. 436 . In the absence of evidence that the condition causing the injury was created by the acts or omissions of the employees of the defendant, liability depends upon proof that the defendant knew, or ought to have known, that the condition created by an intervening agency existed. For the purpose of the demurrer prayer we must assume the ⁵⁹⁸ truth of the plaintiff’s testimony that she slipped on an oily spot at the foot of the stairs. But the evidence does not support an inference that the foreign substance was placed there by the employees of the defendant, that its presence