Pandjiris v. Oliver Cadillac Co.

98 S.W.2d 969, 339 Mo. 711, 1936 Mo. LEXIS 572
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedNovember 12, 1936
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 98 S.W.2d 969 (Pandjiris v. Oliver Cadillac Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pandjiris v. Oliver Cadillac Co., 98 S.W.2d 969, 339 Mo. 711, 1936 Mo. LEXIS 572 (Mo. 1936).

Opinion

*715 HAYS, J.

In this action for damages for personal injuries' the Oliver Cadillac Company, a-corporation, has-appealed from an adverse judgment for thirty thousand dollars.

Respondent’s petition alleged appellant’s ownership and exclusive possession and control of the building in which it conducted its business, the falling of a brick from the third story thereof upon the respondent’s head, due to general negligence'of defendant, and' resulting in'injuries to respondent; for-which she prayed damages in -the sum of $100,000.

' The answer was a general denial.

The testimony in behalf of respondent went to show that on October 4, 1932, at about seven-thirty p. m., the evening of the Veiled *716 Prophet’s parade, respondent, a married woman tbirty-seven years old at the time ■ of the trial ■ below, was standing- with her husband and some friends on the sidewalk on the south side of Laclede Avenue, a short distance west of Sarah Street in the city of St. Louis, near the north wall of a building, owned and occupied by the appellant and situated at the .southwest comer of Laclede Avenue and Sarah Street and abutting upon said sidewalk. While thus standing upon the sidewalk near the building, the respondent was struck on the head by a half-brick, weighing two and á half pounds, that fell out of. the wall of said building from a point adjacent to the side of a third-story, window. She was knocked down and rendered unconscious. She was carried into the office of Dr. Funsch, located near the scene of the casualty, who took her to a hospital for ah immediate-operation. •. • -

Witness Kessler testified that ■ he and his wife were standing on the sidewalk that evening near this building, not far from respondent, when he heard a “grating noise” above his head, “toward the building,” and about the same time he heard a thud on the ground and looked around and saw respondent lying on the sidewalk. After the accident he saw two bricks that were loose “alongside of a window.” Mrs. Kessler testified that immediately before'respondent was struck she heard a “terrible noise,” which was “like a window opening;” that after..respondent had fallen to the sidewalk there was - a half-brick lying nearby, and she observed a hole in the building, the -place where, she knew, the brick came from was a third-story window. - ■

Carl Gelan, an employee of defendant, referring to the photographs put in evidence, testified that the point identified thereon as being the place from which the brick fell was on the west side of the first window from the corner and corresponded with the sixth brick from the base of the window. ■ He said the windows had metal sash. They were opened by a lever attached to the- middle of the bottom of the sash which shoved the lower half of the window outward. The half-brick fell about thirty-four feet. After the accident the brickwork at this window, where the brick was missing, was found to-be intact, firm and solid, except at. the one point where there was one brick loose and a half-brick out; that appellant reinstalled the loose-whole brick and replaced the half-brick in a day or so; that it was the custom never- to open this window and the one immediately west of it.

George Bauer, the appellant’s secretary, as respondent’s witness, testified, among other things, that many people were in the building that night, viewing the parade; that this particular window was One that was never opened; that the third-story windows on the north side of the building, toward the east end, were kept closed to keep *717 the dust aud dirt from the street out of the room at' that comer of the building where cars were kept for exhibition and sale.

This was the gravaman- of respondent’s ease in chief as shown by appellant’s printed abstract. It is conceded that the petition was properly framed to-' invoke the doctrine res ipsa loquitur.

I. It is contended that the evidence in respondent’s behalf was insufficient to take the ease to the jury, because (1) such evidence permits no inference other than that the falling of the brick was directly and proximately due to the pushing open of a window of the building by someone; (2) the facts relied on were not such as to reasonably exclude any other hypothesis than that of.the negligence claimed. The latter contention is predicated upon the cases of Grindstaff v. J. Goldberg & Sons Structural Steel Co., 328 Mo. 72, 80, 40 S. W. (2d) 702, and Removich v. Construction Co., 264 Mo. 43, 173 S. W. 686 ; neither of which, we think, is applicable to the present situation. In the first of those cases the only facts shown by the evidence were the breaking of a chain by which a heavy steel truss was being hoisted and carried, and which, when the chain broke, fell upon the plaintiff, a workman in the steel plant, who pulled the rope of the motor by which the -crane was set in motion. The court held that the mere breaking of the rope did not make a submissible case either with or without the doctrine res ipsa loquitur, since there was no evidence of the size, weight or tensile strength of the chain, or that there was anything.unusual or abnormal in its action, or that there was a defect in its -construction, or that it was obviously unfit for the purpose of which it was used. To that ease the Removich case is similar. The case at bar is distinctly different, and the doctrine res ipsa loquitur applies. [Gordon v. Packing Co., 328 Mo. 123, l. c. 140, 141, 40 S. W. (2d) 693; Walsh v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 331 Mo. 118, 52 S. W. (2d) 839.] That will appear more fully in the progress of this opinion.

If, as is contended, the evidence introduced by respondent shows the precise cause of the casualty the benefit of the rule res ipsa loquitur was waived or lost. [Conduitt v. Gas & Elec. Co., 326 Mo. l. c. 143, and authorities there cited.] But even so, the cause specifically shown is not necessarily insufficient to take the case to the jury. However, we are not of the opinion tha.t the facts shown by respondent’s evidence did clearly show what caused the brick to become detached from the wall and to fall. [Lober v. Kansas City (Mo.), 74 S. W. (2d) l. c. 819.] The evidence on behalf of respondent merely showed a situation which, if unexplained, gave rise to a permissible inference that the object’s fall was due to appellant’s negligence. Even if it were inferable from the evidence on respondent’s behalf that at the time the brick fell a window had been opened, *718 that still would not explain how or why the briek became detached from the wall and fell.

It is next urged that the court should have directed a verdict for the appellant at the close of all the evidence, since (1) the appellant cannot be held liable for the falling of the brick “through some agency not under appellant’s control,” and (2) the presumption or inference of negligence, if any, arising under the res ipsa loqmtur rule,, instantly disappeared upon the incoming of appellant’s proof that the act which caused the brick to fall was that of a trespasser on the premises. These contentions are predicated upon testimony of appellant’s witness Wunderlich, which was in substance as follows:

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Bluebook (online)
98 S.W.2d 969, 339 Mo. 711, 1936 Mo. LEXIS 572, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pandjiris-v-oliver-cadillac-co-mo-1936.