Barnett v. Trinity Universal Insurance Company

286 So. 2d 770, 1973 La. App. LEXIS 5982
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 10, 1973
Docket12077
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 286 So. 2d 770 (Barnett v. Trinity Universal Insurance Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barnett v. Trinity Universal Insurance Company, 286 So. 2d 770, 1973 La. App. LEXIS 5982 (La. Ct. App. 1973).

Opinion

286 So.2d 770 (1973)

Mrs. Anne R. BARNETT et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
TRINITY UNIVERSAL INSURANCE COMPANY et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 12077.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

May 1, 1973.
On Rehearing October 10, 1973.
Rehearing Denied November 13, 1973.

*771 Booth, Lockard, Jack, Pleasant & Lesage by Troy E. Bain, Leonard L. Lockard, Joseph R. Bethard, Shreveport, for appellants.

Bodenheimer, Jones, Klotz & Simmons by G. M. Bodenheimer, Jr., Lunn, Irion, Switzer, Johnson & Salley by Charles W. Salley, Shreveport, for appellees.

Before PRICE, HEARD and HALL, JJ.

Rehearing En Banc Denied November 13, 1973.

HALL, Judge.

This suit was instituted by the widow and children of Charles L. Barnett who died from injuries sustained when he fell down an elevator shaft in the Ward Building in Shreveport. Barnett was found at the bottom of the shaft on the morning of November 30, 1969, seriously injured, and he died later that day of these injuries. Defendants named in the suit were the owners of the building, Hallie Ward Hargrove, Alice Ward Fowler, D. R. Moreland and Cornelia R. Moreland; Safe, Inc., lessee and operator of the building; and its *772 insurer, Trinity Universal Insurance Company. Defendants filed a third party petition against Otis Elevator Company which was subsequently dismissed with prejudice on motion of defendants. Following a trial on the merits the district court sustained a plea of contributory negligence and rejected plaintiffs' demands. Plaintiffs then perfected an appeal to this court. We affirm the decision of the district court.

The following facts are established by the evidence:

1. On Sunday morning, November 30, 1969, at about 10:30 a. m., Barnett was found seriously injured at the bottom of the passenger elevator shaft in the Ward Building. Barnett died of the injuries at about 5:30 that same afternoon.

2. He was found by Fred Joanen, another tenant of the building. Joanen unlocked the front door to the lobby, started up the stairs to his office, heard a noise and noticed the elevator door was open, went on upstairs and heard a noise again as he came back down the stairs, walked over to the elevator and looked down the shaft but could not see anything because of darkness, went to his car and got his flashlight, went back to the elevator and saw Barnett at the bottom of the shaft.

3. The Ward Building is a three-story office building in downtown Shreveport. Barnett, an attorney, had been a tenant of the building for more than twenty years. He, along with several other tenants, was furnished a key to the front door so he could get in on the weekends when the building was closed to the public. He had been to his office on numerous occasions on Sundays and had used the elevator on Sundays.

4. In 1960, the building was leased by the owners, Hallie Ward Hargrove, et al, to Safe, Inc. which company operated the building under the management of Paul Shapiro, its president, from that time through the date of trial.

5. The building was equipped with two elevators installed in 1937, located side by side at the rear side of the first floor lobby. The elevator involved in this litigation was used as a passenger elevator and the other for freight. At one time there may have been an operator on duty seven days a week, but at least since 1963 there was an operator on duty from 7:30 a. m. to 6:00 p. m., six days a week, but not on Sundays.

6. The elevator was manually operated and was not designed as an automatic self-service elevator. It could be moved up and down only by use of a lever or control inside the elevator car. It could not be called from floor to floor by a button outside the elevator. It had no interlocking safety device to prevent the door from opening when the elevator car was not present. The elevator car itself had no door, but there was a door on each floor for access to the elevator. All doors had to be closed in order for the elevator to move up or down.

7. With no operator present and with the door closed, the only way to open the door to the elevator at the first floor is by use of a metal rod, called an emergency or lunar key. This key was left hanging behind a door under the stairs in the lobby across from the elevator. To open the door, the key was inserted through a hole in the door and moved to break the locking bar across the inside of the door, which then opened about six inches. The door could then be pushed completely open in which position it would stay open. The person opening the door would normally then return the key to its place under the stairs and walk back to the elevator to enter and use it.

8. An ignition key was left in the control panel inside the elevator at all times. To operate the elevator after getting into it, the key had to be turned on, the door shut, and the lever control moved up or down. There was a light inside the elevator car controlled by a switch on the control panel.

*773 9. If the elevator was taken to the second or third floors by someone wishing to visit their office or stay on that floor, the elevator necessarily remained on the upper floor until that person or someone else got into it on that floor and brought it back to the first floor. After taking the elevator to one of the upper floors, it was necessary to prop the door open at that floor because if the door shut there was no way to get it back open through any method available to the tenants.

10. Under orders from the building manager, Shapiro, the lights in the lobby and in the elevator car were regularly turned off each day at 6:00 p. m., and were off on Sundays. There is a display window at the rear end of the lobby located two or three feet from the elevator in which a light was left on at all times. Thus, the only light in the lobby on the Sunday of the accident was the light from the display window and any daylight that came in through the windows at the front of the lobby and a small window over the stairs.

11. When Barnett was found on Sunday morning, the first floor door to the elevator was wide open. The elevator car was on the third floor. The emergency key was in its usual place behind a door under the stairs.

12. Although Barnett was found about 10:30 in the morning and it was a bright, sunshiny day at that time, there is no evidence as to what time he entered the building or when the accident happened. It could have happened either before or after daylight.

13. Plaintiffs' expert witness, W. S. Poole, an electrical engineer experienced in lighting and with elevators, made light meter readings in the lobby at a later date, on a cloudy day with no artificial lights on except that in the display window. The available light at the entrance to the elevator measured two foot candles. Poole testified any sunlight would have a negligible effect on the lighting at the entrance to the elevator, ninety-five per cent of the available light at that point being from the display window. The expert testified five foot candles would be usual for lighting the entrance to an elevator. On cross-examination, to illustrate the amount of light provided by two foot candles, Poole testified he could, with such light, see counsel standing some three and a half full steps away from him.

14. Shapiro testified that with the display window light on, you could see whether the elevator car was on the first floor. Joanen testified that he could see to walk around the lobby and could see the elevator car was not there at the first floor.

15.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
286 So. 2d 770, 1973 La. App. LEXIS 5982, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barnett-v-trinity-universal-insurance-company-lactapp-1973.