Ennis v. Peterson

438 S.W.2d 674, 36 A.L.R. 3d 1334, 1969 Tex. App. LEXIS 2809
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 6, 1969
DocketNo. 15432
StatusPublished

This text of 438 S.W.2d 674 (Ennis v. Peterson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ennis v. Peterson, 438 S.W.2d 674, 36 A.L.R. 3d 1334, 1969 Tex. App. LEXIS 2809 (Tex. Ct. App. 1969).

Opinion

PEDEN, Justice.

Appellant broke her hip when she tripped and fell at the threshold of a door as she was leaving her doctor’s offices. She appeals from the trial court’s having withdrawn the case from the jury and from its judgment that she recover nothing.

Appellant’s first point of error is overlapped by her second point, which states tat that since she had established that Dr. Peterson’s floor was defective where she fell, that the defect had existed for a long time and that it was not readily apparent to her (a business invitee), the trial court erred in withdrawing the case from the jury and in rendering a judgment that she take nothing.

Appellant’s third point of error is that the trial court erred in excluding, if it did, her testimony concerning the condition of the entranceway when she later inspected it.

The two parties to the suit were the only ones who testified as to its liability aspects; each of them testified in person and by deposition. We will not review the evidence as to appellant’s damages.

Dr. Peterson’s deposition was taken on February 14, 1968. In it he stated that Mrs. Ennis had been in his office as a patient on December 30, 1963 and had fallen as she was leaving. She was lying on the floor when he first saw her after her fall. The floor was of asphalt tile and at the door there was a metal facing or weatherstripping bedded in the concrete with bolts.

He related that he had at that time inspected the area immediately around where she had fallen by looking “in the doorway to see if there was anything on the floor or in the door and it was just like it had always been and still is; there was nothing there at all.” He had examined the asphalt tile at that time but didn’t notice any cracks or pieces missing in the tile. He was asked, “And is the condition of that threshold and doorway and step today exactly as it was back there in ’63?” He answered, “Exactly. Got the door painted a while back.”

“Q Other than that, there have been no changes?
“A No changes at all.
"Q There hasn’t been any weathering effect that’s noticeable to you?
“A No. It’s closed in. It is set back in from weather. There’s no weather that gets to that. The entrance is, oh, six to eight feet wide and five feet deep. You step up, come in the entranceway and open the door and come in. So it is well protected from the outside.
“Q The surface area, the step and the metal strip and, in fact, the tile just inside that metal strip, they are all smooth as the day they were put there or, at least, as they have been for years ?
“A Yes, as far as I know. Unless there’s been some wear and tear on it since ’63 that I don’t particularly know of, it’s just like it’s always been.
“Q At least there was nothing there at the time that you saw that you thought would need repairs?
“A No, I didn’t see anything. Certainly there was nothing repaired. There was nothing to repair.
“Q And you looked to see if there was, is that your testimony ?
“A That’s right.”

When called to the witness stand, Dr. Peterson repeated his deposition testimony [676]*676that he had inspected the threshold area just after Mrs. Ennis’ fall. He found nothing to give him any cause to believe anything was wrong; the walkway and entranceway were the same as they had been all the years he had been there. Also, that the entranceway, the concrete or tile and the weatherstripping are the same today as when Mrs. Ennis fell and the same as they had been for a long time before that.

Mrs. Ennis testified in person that as she was leaving Dr. Peterson’s waiting room after having seen him on December 30, 1963, something caught the heel of her left shoe briefly and she was hurled down onto the vestibule floor, breaking her right hip. When asked what caused her to fall, she replied, “I know now what caused me to fall.” She explained that the floor is covered with asphalt tile and that there is a strip of metal across the doorway; along the edge of the metal the “tile has worn away in a narrow and irregular strip so that it has left the inner edge of that metal strip more exposed in spots.” She said that her left heel caught on that and caused her to fall but that as she had approached the door the floor and threshold had appeared to be normal. She was asked if she was saying there was something wrong with the doorway area then. Her reply was, “Yes, I am. The doorway area is in bad condition.” Appellee’s counsel said, “I object to that as a conclusion.” The objection was sustained. Then the trial judge instructed the jury not to consider for any purpose whatsoever in arriving at its verdict any statement by the witness that there was something wrong with the doorway and asked Mrs. Ennis not to express any conclusions or opinions.

She related that it was the inner front corner of the right side of the heel of the left shoe that got caught in the doorway. The heels had been repaired earlier that day and were completely smooth.

Mrs. Ennis said she had not noticed anything that could have caused her to fall until she had gone back to Dr. Peterson’s office a few days before the trial because she knew there was something there that caused her to fall. She found a “bare, slightly irregular strip on the inner side of the metal strip, the strip of floor which is at intervals bare because the tile has been worn and broken away.” (Emphasis added.) Some of the tile is missing along there in a very narrow, irregular stretch.”

The trial court sustained an objection by appellee’s counsel to the next question, which had inquired as to what she had done in order to see this condition. The objection was based on appellant’s observation having been made some five years after the date of the accident and on a lack of showing that the tile was in that condition at the time of the alleged accident.

Mrs. Ennis then testified that at the time of her fall she knew her heel had caught. It had caught on the metal stripping across the doorway.

On cross-examination she stated that she had visited appellee’s offices many times as a patient since about 1954 or 1955 and that from that time until the time of her accident she had not, in general, noticed any change in the interior of the office, the steps or the weatherstripping. She testified that the inside corner of the heel of her left shoe (it was in evidence) had definitely been pulled away in the accident.

Her attention was called to her testimony in her deposition taken on September 13, 1967 (some nine months prior to the trial), at which time she said she did not know what her heel caught in, and she still did not “personally” know what her heel caught in.

On the witness stand she then stated that it was after her inspection of the threshold about a week before the trial that she first determined that her heel had caught on the weatherstripping; its edge was uncovered to a point where something could catch on it, as she found on the eve of trial. Her recent visit to appellee’s office was her first since the accident.

[677]*677She was asked to describe what that doorway looked like.

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Bluebook (online)
438 S.W.2d 674, 36 A.L.R. 3d 1334, 1969 Tex. App. LEXIS 2809, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ennis-v-peterson-texapp-1969.