Ralph Pritts & Sons, Inc. v. Butler

Liss, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant in this case is Ralph Pritts and Sons, Inc., a body corporate of the State of Maryland, which operates an automotive repair shop in Oakland, Garrett County, Maryland. The appellees are William C. Butler and Barbara Ann Butler, his wife, who sued the appellant in the Circuit Court for Garrett County for the personal injuries sustained by Mr. Butler and for the loss of consortium alleged by his wife, arising out of an explosion which occurred on January 8,1977. The explosion involved a lift apparatus located in the appellant’s garage which was being used after normal business hours by the appellee and an employee of the appellant.

At trial before the trial judge and a jury, the parties offered testimony which raised substantial issues of fact for determination by the jury. The testimony offered at trial was as follows: Howard Fulk was a regular, full-time employee of the appellant. The appellee, William C. Butler, was a longtime customer of the appellant’s garage who had previously bought several automobiles from Fulk in his capacity as an employee and salesman for the appellant. The appellee, in the past, had automotive work performed on his vehicles at the garage.

Sometime in December, 1976, Fulk, using a vehicle belonging to the appellant, drove the appellee to a parts shop located in Cumberland, Maryland. While there, the appellee had Fulk purchase a winch which he wanted installed on one of his vehicles. As Butler did not have sufficient cash with him to pay for the winch, the equipment was charged to the account of the appellant. Fulk and Butler returned to the appellant’s garage and deposited the winch where it remained undisturbed for a month.

The understanding between Butler and Fulk was that Butler was to be billed for the winch, however Butler insisted that before ¹⁹⁴ he would pay the bill, Fulk would be required to install the winch on Butler’s truck. Fulk testified that he intended to install the winch “some Saturday evening after I got off work and the garage was closed.” Evidence was produced to the effect that the appellant had permitted its employees to work on their own cars at the appellant’s garage after hours and on weekends, and that the employees were authorized to use the equipment at the garage while repairing their own vehicles. Appellant indicated that the employees had been advised that this privilege extended only to the employee-owned vehicles.' However, Fulk testified that he knew of no company policy which precluded him from working on the appellee’s car after hours in the company garage. He stated further that he had notified the general manager that he had purchased the winch for Butler, that he had charged it to the company’s account, and that he proposed to install the winch on the appellant’s car on his own time, after hours.

The general manager denied having any recollection of receiving such information from Fulk. In any event, on January 8, 1977, at approximately 5:00 P.M., when the garage was closed for regular business, Fulk, Butler and several of his friends undertook to install the winch on Butler’s truck. The vehicle was placed on a hoist which was operated by Fulk. Butler testified that there was suddenly a loud explosion which “rose from underneath me,” and that the force of the explosion caused the deck plate, which covered the hydraulic container of the lift, to strike the appellee in the leg, causing his leg to collapse underneath him and causing him to be thrown six to eight feet from the truck.

As a result of the explosion, the appellee alleged that he sustained serious personal injuries, which required extensive medical treatment, that he lost large sums of wages and that he and his wife suffered a loss of consortium. Appellant moved for a directed verdict at the conclusion of the plaintiff’s case and at the close of all the evidence. Both motions were denied, and the case was submitted to the jury which after deliberation returned a substantial verdict in favor of the appellees. The trial judge denied motions for a ¹⁹⁵ judgment n.o.v. and a new trial, and it is from these several judgments that this appeal was filed.

Appellant presents four questions to be decided by this appeal. We shall not consider them in the order suggested by the appellant but will instead consider the issues in the following sequence: 1. Did the court below err in instructing the jury that they could consider the plaintiff a business invitee while on the defendant’s premises? 2. Is the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur applicable in the instant case? 3.

Was there sufficient evidence of negligence on the part of the defendant to warrant submission of the case to the jury? 4. Did the court err in instructing the jury that they could consider lost wages of the plaintiff? 1. Business Invitee Appellant vigorously contends that the trial court erred in submitting to the jury the question of whether the appellee was a business invitee on the appellant’s premises where he sustained the injuries complained of in this case. The Court of Appeals, in Bramble v. Thompson, 264 Md. 518, 521 , 287 A. 2d 265 (1972), gave a concise and lucid explanation of the duties of the owners of real property to invitees, licensees, and trespassers 1 as follows: The liability of owners of real or personal property to an individual injured on their property is dependent on the standard of care owed to the ¹⁹⁶ individual and that in turn is contingent upon a determination of the individual's status while on the property, i.e., whether he is an invitee, licensee, or trespasser.

An invitee is one invited or permitted to enter or remain on another’s property for purposes connected with or related to the owner’s business. The owner must use reasonable and ordinary care to keep his premises safe for the invitee and to protect the invitee from injury caused by an unreasonable risk which the invitee, by exercising ordinary care for his own safety, will not discover. [Citations omitted.] A licensee is one privileged by virtue of proper consent to enter for his own purpose or convenience onto another’s property. There are two types of licensees, a bare licensee and a licensee by invitation. A bare licensee takes the property as he finds it and, like a trespasser, he is owed no duty by the owner except that he may not be wilfully or wantonly injured or entrapped by the owner once his presence is known. [Citations omitted.] A licensee by invitation is a social guest who takes the premises as his host uses them.

In general, the legál duty owed him by the host is to take the same care of the guest as the host takes of himself or members of his family. He must exercise reasonable care to make the premises safe for his guest or he must warn him of known dangerous conditions that cannot reasonably be discovered and which in fact are not discovered by the guest. [Citations omitted.] A trespasser is one who intentionally and without consent or privilege enters another’s property. [Citations omitted.] The only duty of care a property owner owes to a trespasser, even one of tender years, is to refrain from wilfully or wantonly injuring the intruder. [Citations omitted.] The appellee contends, justifiably we believe, that there was evidence from which the jury could have found that the appellee was a business invitee on the premises of the appellant when his injuries were sustained. There was ¹⁹⁷ testimony, which if believed, established the fact that Fulk extended a specific invitation to the appellee to come to the appellant’s premises to have the winch installed. The testimony further showed that Fulk had been employed by the appellant for more than five years and had performed a variety of functions for the appellant including being a shop foreman and salesman, and purchasing parts.

In addition, Fulk testified that when he agreed to install the winch after hours, he was aware of no regulations or policies of the appellant which precluded such action on his part. He stated that it was not unusual for this type of work to be performed in the evening, and that he had apprised the general manager of what he proposed to do without receiving any objection. That the arrangement was not unusual was substantiated by the general manager who testified concerning the use of the garage after hours. He stated that “several of the employees brought other people’s cars in and worked on them.

We didn’t say anything to them about it, no.” It seems clear to us that on this state of the record, the trial court was eminently correct in submitting to the jury the question of whether Fulk had the actual authority to expressly invite the appellee to the appellant’s place of business on the fateful Saturday evening. Nor may the appellant avoid responsibility for the acts of his employee by relying on restrictions on the acts of the employee unknown to the persons dealing with that employee. As the Court of Appeals said in Banks v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 212 Md. 31, 43 , 128 A. 2d 600 (1957), “[i]t is held generally that an employer cannot escape liability for the acts of his agent by placing limitations on his authority not known to others dealing with him nor properly inferable from the nature of his employment.” We conclude that there was evidence from which the jury could conclude that the appellee in this case acquired the status of a business invitee by way of Fulk’s express invitation. Even if, arguendo, we were to decide that there was no sufficient express invitation, we believe that the appellee would, nevertheless, be a business invitee by implication. ¹⁹⁸ The Court of Appeals, in Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Kane, 213 Md. 152 , 131 A. 2d 470 (1957) held that a person on another’s premises could be a business invitee because of an implied invitation.

The defendant in that case contended that the plaintiff was not an invitee or business visitor when he was injured on the defendant’s premises because the plaintiff was not acting for the mutual benefit of the defendant “or promoting any business interest of the owner, but [that he was] acting solely for his own personal pleasure and benefit.” Id. at 158 . In commenting on this defense, the Court said: The cases all recognize that an invitation may be express or implied, and there are many cases in which an invitation has been implied from circumstances, such as custom, the acquiescence of the owner in habitual use, the apparent holding out of premises to a particular use by the public, or simply in the general arrangement or design of the premises. [Id. at 159.] See Gray v. Sentinel Auto Parts Co., 265 Md. 61 , 288 A. 2d 121 (1972); Woodward v. Newstein, 37 Md. App. 285 , 377 A. 2d 535 (1977). Appellant urges that Crown Cork, supra, is inapplicable because there was no evidence of a pecuniary or economic benefit to the appellant flowing from the installation of the winch in the case at bar. The Court of Appeals, in discussing the nature and type of the benefit contemplated in Crown Cork,