McIntyre v. Doe & Roe

DRAPEAU, J.

Plaintiff, Jessie C. McIntyre, was standing in the ticket line in the lobby of the La Mar Theatre in Manhattan Beach. It was about 2 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. The theatre doors had not been opened.

Boys and girls were playing in the lobby. A boy who was there testified: “Well, he (the manager) came out and he said that we should stop pushing and running around and yelling and playing sort of tag around the box office as somebody might get hurt.”

Asked what the manager did then, the boy said, “Then he went back in.”

Then the boy told what happened to Mrs. McIntyre: “Well, I was over there by the curb and after he went back in they started running around and pushing and these two boys started to play a game of tag around the box office and one of them bumped Mrs. McIntyre and she fell down.”

For a woman of Mrs. McIntyre’s age—82 at the time of the trial—this accident had serious consequences. Her hip was broken, and she was in the hospital for weeks, and in bed at home for months, attended by a nurse.

Mrs. McIntyre brought this action for damages against the owners of the theatre and the manager. She appeals from a judgment rendered against her upon findings by the judge of the trial court that defendants were not negligent.

It is plaintiff’s theory that defendants knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, of the acts of the youngsters, but that defendants nevertheless carelessly and negligently continued to operate the theatre, and

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failed and neglected to protect plaintiff in her enjoyment of the invitation they had given her to attend the theatre. In short, plaintiff’s appeal is based upon the ground that the finding of nonnegligence of the defendants is not supported by the evidence, and that upon the evidence the findings and judgment should have been in her favor.

Plaintiff relies upon the ease of

Katz

v.

Helbing,