Rodenberger v. Frederickson

JONES, J. pro tem.

In this action the plaintiff secured a verdict for $20,000 on account of injuries sustained in falling into the lightwell of an apartment house. The appeal is from the judgment on the verdict.

There were three apartments, or flats, in the building, one above the other. Plaintiff rented and occupied the one on the second floor. She had lived in this apartment for about four years preceding the accident. The rear entrances of the upper apartments were reached by stairways. A lightwell was also a part of the structure and was located at the rear of the building with a concrete floor at the bottom. Landings and porches were provided on the upper floor for use. of the tenants. These landings were used by the tenants for drying clothes and as places where their children could play as well as passageways from one flight of stairs to another. Two steps led up from the landing to the rear entrance of plaintiff’s apartment. The lower of these steps was about 10 inches wide and the upper approximately 6 inches in width. The distance from the outer wall of the apartment to the edge of the light-well measured 42 inches, with a clearance of approximately 26 inches between the lower step and the edge of the lightwell.

A low wall was built along the edge of the lightwell opposite the rear entrance to plaintiff’s apartment. This wall was about 4 feet high and of tongue-and-grooved boards set upright making it solid. On the floor of the porch at the edge of and parallel to that side of the lightwell there was fastened a piece of timber in the top of which was a groove. The upright boards were set in this groove, and on the top was another timber or rail in which there was a groove into which the uprights were fitted at the top end. To replace the boards when removed as the witness Pederson testified,

.

you spring the railing

slightly

when you put the boards back in. ’ ’ (Italics added.) Some of the witnesses testified that the top railing, or cap, was loose just prior to the accident, and they also testified that the boards and other timbers were old and rotten, and in this they are strongly corroborated by the photographs introduced in evidence.

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When plaintiff moved into her apartment there was attached to the wall just outside the rear door an apple or orange crate which was used as a food cooler. On the morning of December 18, 1948, she went outside to this food box to secure some food for breakfast. While she was on the top step, the same being 6 inches in width, she tripped, or lost her balance, and fell striking the upright boards forming the lightwell wall. Eight of these boards slipped out of the grooves in which they were set precipitating her to the concrete floor of the lightwell. She sustained a fractured vertebra, broken ribs, and other injuries, and was hospitalized for several weeks.