Pazik v. Devine

24 Ohio Law. Abs. 653, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1110
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 30, 1937
DocketNo 2358
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 24 Ohio Law. Abs. 653 (Pazik v. Devine) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pazik v. Devine, 24 Ohio Law. Abs. 653, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1110 (Ohio Ct. App. 1937).

Opinion

OPINION

By ROBERTS, J.

This cause is in this Court of Appeals upon an appeal of law from the Court of Common Pleas. The parties occupy the same relative positions in the trial as in the lower court and will hereinafter be referred to as plaintiff and defendant as appearing in the trial in that court.

The plaintiff alleged, in substance, in her petition that James A. Devine was the duly appointed and qualified receiver for the Central Savings & Loan Company, and was authorized in said proceedings to take charge of all of the assets and property of said Central Savings & Loan Company; that included in said assets is a certain structure known and referred to as the Central Tower, being an office building with entrances leading therein both from West Federal Street and from the west side of the Public Square, where said building is situated; that during all of the times herein mentioned, the defendant, James A. Devine, as receiver for the Central Savings & Loan Company, had complete control, operation, maintenance and supervision of the above described building, namely the Central Tower: Thus far the allegations of the petition are admitted by the answer of the defendant, and the further allegations of the petition are denied by the answer. It is further alleged that on or about November 15, 1933, while this plaintiff was entering said Central Tower from the easterly entrance on the Public Square, and while walking from the revolving door into the interior corridor of said Central Tower, this plaintiff was caused to fall, through no fault of hers, over slush and water immediately adjacent to the revolving door, thereby causing her to come in violent contact with the hard surface of the floor, thereby inflicting injuries upon her. It is not necessary for present purposes to go into details concerning these injuries, which are alleged to have been serious in nature. The plaintiff further says that said injuries were caused and brought about without any negligence on her part whatsoever, but due solely and wholly to the negligence of the defendant directly and proximately operating in the following respects, to-wit:

“1. In that the defendant, acting by and through its servants and agents, the employes in control of said office building, negligently, carelessly caused and permitted as unsafe condition to exist near the revolving door, from the easterly entrance of said building where people would ordinarily enter said building and causing and allowing to remain on said floor, ice and slush, resulting from the revolving doors, without giving notice or warning to people entering said building and by reason thereof, the defendant caused and permitted a dangerous, insecure and unsafe condition to be and remain in said entrance [654]*654way where people ordinarily entered said building, thereby causing a nuisance to exist.
“2. In that the defendant, acting by and through, its agents and servants, the employes in the control of the operation and maintenance of said office building, caused and permitted a dangerous and unsafe and insecure condition to be and remain in the entrance way to said building, and by reason thereof the plaintiff fell upon said ice and slush and was injured as described herein.”

The petition further alleges that at the time of receiving said injuries the plaintiff was in good health, able-bodied and earning $15.00 per week, and that by reason of said injuries, solely caused to the plaintiff by the negligence and’ reckless conduct of the defendant, as described herein, she has been caused great pain and suffering and will continue to suffer pain by reason of said injuries, and that she is permanently weakened and injured, to her damage in the sum of $5,000.00, for which sum she prays judgment.

The issue thus raised subsequently came on for trial to a jury in the Court of Common Pleas. Plaintiff introduced evidence in support of her contention and rested. Thereupon the following appears, as shown by the record, page 69:

"Mr. Pfau: Now comes the defendant, at the close of plaintiff’s evidence and respectfully requests the court to arrest the evidence from the jury and direct a verdict for the defendant.
"Court: Motion sustained on authority of 116 Oh St, the Fader case, commencing at page 718, and also on authority of the principles followed by our Court of Appeals in Suran v Lustig Shoe Store, 14 Abs, commencing at page 590, and see full opinions filed in the Law Library.
“Mr. Betras: Exception.”

On the direction of the court, therefore, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendant, upon which judgment was rendered, and the plaintiff prosecutes her action in this court for a reversal of the judgment of the Court of. Common Pleas.

The evidence in the case discloses that the Central Tower is a modern, seventeen story structure, occupied as an office building, located on the west side of the Public Square in the city of Youngstown, and at the time of the matters concerning which complaint is made was under the management and control of James A. Devine, receiver, and defendant in this action. There is a lobby or entrance on the ground floor of the easterly side of said building, from the Public Square, consisting of two revolving doors which give entrance into a room from which there is also an exit northerly to West Federal Street, the doorway opening into a drug store and three elevators. Heat is provided for in this building by three large radiators. The outside revolving doors are so constructed that they are continually closed; that is. as a person enters the building passes through the revolving door before the wing in .front of such person opens the wing in the rear of such person closes. There is fastened to the wings of these revolving doors strips oí flexible rubber which contact with the floor and on the wings perpendicularly, contacting with the jams of the door in some fabric which contacts with the jams, so that a draft of air through the doors is impossible, subject however, to some air presumably being carried in from the outside as these doors revolve.

The evidence is further to ihe effect that on the 15th day of November, 1933, in the afternoon, the plaintiff, a young lady, having occasion to visit an office in the Central Tower building, on some matter of business, entered the lobby through one of the revolving doors, intending to take an elevator to go to a higher floor, and that while crossing the lobby she slipped and fell over what the testimony shows to be slush and ice that had formed in that lobby and she- was severely injured. The evidence further indicates that on the day in question the weather was cold, and during the day there had been but little heat in the lobby from the radiators or otherwise, and the room was cold; that ice inside the revolving doors had been forming for some time and had accumulated to a considerable thickness, about one inch, as shown by the testimony. This condition was testified to by a considerable number of witnesses, and so far as the proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas were concerned, was uncontradicted, a verdict having been directed by the court at the closp oí plaintiff’s testimony. This verdict was di» rected, as stated, by the trial court at the time of such direction, on the authority of the case of Kresge v Fader, 116 Oh St 718, and Suran v Lustig Shoe Store, 14 Abs 590, and counsel for the receiver defends the action of the court In so directing a verdict on the authority of these cases.

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Related

Kraus v. W. T. Grant Co.
82 N.E.2d 544 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1948)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
24 Ohio Law. Abs. 653, 1937 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 1110, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pazik-v-devine-ohioctapp-1937.