Chaney ex rel. Chaney v. Creten

658 S.W.2d 891, 1983 Mo. App. LEXIS 3580
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 28, 1983
DocketNo. WD 33801
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 658 S.W.2d 891 (Chaney ex rel. Chaney v. Creten) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chaney ex rel. Chaney v. Creten, 658 S.W.2d 891, 1983 Mo. App. LEXIS 3580 (Mo. Ct. App. 1983).

Opinion

KENNEDY, Judge.

Plaintiffs mother and son appeal from an adverse verdict and judgment in their lawsuit for damages for injuries sustained by son in a collision between himself and another skater, defendant Frank Bernard, as the two of them were skating at a skating rink operated by defendants John Creten, Mabel Creten, Roger D. Sorensen and Marcie Sorensen, d/b/a Skateland.

The submitted negligence of defendant Frank Bernard was his skating backward.

The submitted negligence of defendant Skateland, as we shall call the four defendants Creten and Sorensen collectively, was its failure to supervise the skating rink so as to prevent Bernard’s skating backward.

Plaintiff Gary Lee Chaney at the time of the accident was seven years of age. He was a guest at a friend’s birthday party held at Skateland, a public roller-skating rink operated by defendants Creten and Sorensen. Seventeen-year-old Frank Bernard was also skating at the rink on this afternoon, although he was not a guest at the birthday party. As he was skating backwards he collided with Gary Lee Chaney causing serious injuries to the younger boy.

Plaintiffs claim upon this appeal that the court erred in excluding upon motion in limine certain testimony that defendant Bernard had on earlier occasions been cautioned about skating backward and threatened with exclusion from the rink, and also that he had been denied the privilege of using the rink facilities after his collision with plaintiff Gary Lee Chaney. The excluded testimony by Mary Bringus, manager of Skateland, would have been that on two occasions she had reprimanded him for “[sjkating backwards without watching where he should be going.” The most recent of these, according to her testimony, had been two weeks to a month before the accident. Defendant Bernard himself stated in a deposition (his testimony on this point was likewise excluded) that the last reprimand had been one week before the incident. His testimony in the deposition was: “I got warnings to slow down, quit weaving. I was turning around. She called it weaving .... I was warned to watch out where I was going, or I wasn’t going to be allowed to go backwards.” The record does not show when the earlier of the two occasions was.

The judgment is reversed and the case remanded for a new trial as to defendant Bernard, and affirmed as to Skateland.

The excluded evidence was admissible as against defendant Bernard and it was error to exclude it. The warnings and admonitions he had received tend to show his knowledge of the danger posed by his skating backward. The principle is thus stated in 57 Am.Jur.2d Negligence § 72 (1971):

As hereinbefore stated, the duty to use care is based upon actual or imputed knowledge of danger. It is also true that the care which must be exercised in any particular situation is in proportion to the actor’s knowledge, actual or imputed, of the danger to another in the act to be performed.

See also Komeshak v. Missouri Petroleum Products Co., 314 S.W.2d 263, 270 (Mo.App.1958); 65A C.J.S. Negligence § 233 (1966).

This principle makes admissible the warnings and admonitions earlier given to defendant Frank Bernard.

In so holding we take account that defendant Bernard was 17 years old at the time of the accident. The jury was entitled to consider the fact of recent warnings and admonitions to a youngster of that age, who otherwise might be excused from the consequences of his conduct on the ground of his immaturity. This thought is pointed up in the language of Commissioner Houser in a case where a youthful plaintiff’s contributory negligence was in issue:

We restate with approval what was said in Burger v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 112 Mo. [893]*893238, 20 S.W. 439, l.c. 441, in a strikingly similar factual situation: “Common experience and observation teach us that due care on the part of an infant does not require the judgment and thoughtfulness that would be expected of an adult person under the same circumstances. In the conduct of a boy, we expect to find impulsiveness, indiscretion, and disregard of danger, and his capacity is measured accordingly. A boy may have all the knowledge of an adult respecting the dangers which will attend a particular act, but at the same time he may not have the prudence, thoughtfulness, and discretion to avoid them which are possessed by the ordinarily prudent adult person. Hence the rule is believed to be recognized in all the courts of the country that a child is not negligent if he exercise that degree of care which, under like circumstances, would reasonably be expected of one of his years and capacity. Whether he used such care in a particular case is a question for the jury. Beach, Contrib. Neg. § 117; Eswin v. [St. Louis, I.M. & S.] Railway Co., 96 Mo. [290] 295, 9 S.W.Rep. 577; O’Flaherty v. [Union] Railway Co., 45 Mo. 70; Plumley v. Birge, 124 Mass. 57; Meibus v. Dodge, 38 Wis. 300; [Western & A.] Railroad Co. v. Young, 81 Ga. 397, 7 S.E.Rep. 912.”

The court went ahead to say:

Although he had been warned not to get on the trains and although some three years after the event he testified that he knew it was dangerous, it was for the jury to determine whether at the time he reasoned with respect to the danger. If he considered it at all, “the degree of danger would be as likely to attract as to repel him.” Rauch v. Lloyd & Hill (1858) 31 Pa. 358, 371.

Dodwell v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., 384 S.W.2d 643, 648-49 (Mo.1964). See also Prater v. Burns, 525 S.W.2d 846, 852 (Tenn.App.1975).

The respondents defend the trial court’s exclusionary ruling on the ground of the remoteness of the warnings. They cite cases which apply the principle that prior acts of negligence are generally inadmissible to show the actor negligent on the occasion in question. Wehrkamp v. Watkins Motor Lines, Inc., 436 S.W.2d 698 (Mo.1969); McComb v. Vaughn, 358 Mo. 951, 218 S.W.2d 548 (1949); Harter v. King, 259 S.W.2d 94 (Mo.App.1953). It is true, of course, that Bernard’s earlier negligent acts could not be shown for the purpose of showing his negligence on this occasion. But the warnings and admonitions, although inadmissible on that issue, were admissible to show his knowledge and his appreciation of the danger involved in skating backward. If the evidence is admissible on any issue, it is not to be excluded because it would be inadmissible on another issue in the case.

As to the exclusion of defendant Bernard from the rink after the accident, such evidence would have no tendency to show knowledge or appreciation of the danger of skating backward, and it was correctly held inadmissible. See Diversified Metals Corp. v. Aaron Ferer & Sons, Inc., 498 S.W.2d 783, 786 (Mo.1973); Stoeppelman v.

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Bluebook (online)
658 S.W.2d 891, 1983 Mo. App. LEXIS 3580, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chaney-ex-rel-chaney-v-creten-moctapp-1983.