Holcombe v. Burns

SHEA, J. pro tem.

*

This is an action for personal injuries sustained as the result of a fall. The facts are not disputed. The only evidence relating to the circumstances of the fall is the testimony of the plaintiff and her husband.

The defendant is the owner of a trailer park in which the plaintiff and her husband resided as tenants for several years. In October, 1956, the defendant was going to be away from the trailer park over the weekend and he requested the plaintiff to “put up the mail’’ for him during his absence. She agreed to do it and arrangements were made for her to obtain the keys to the trailer park office. The task involved sorting the mail and placing it in the individual mail boxes of the tenants in the trailer park. She had assisted the defendant in performing this task on one prior occasion. She was to receive no compensation for the service.

On the morning of the accident the plaintiff, accompanied by her husband, went to the office for the purpose of putting up the mail. When she opened, the office she..diseovéred that

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the mail was not there. She then recalled that on one prior occasion she had seen the mail in the tool room, so she walked approximately 15 to 20 feet to the door of the tool room to see if the mail might be in that room. She inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. She then pushed the door inward and took two or three steps into the tool room. Upon seeing that the mail was not in the room, she stepped backward out of the doorway at the same time pulling the door toward a closed position. As she stepped backward her right heel struck the wheel of a lawn mower Avhich was leaning against the outside wall of the tool room. When her heel struck the mower, she was thrown off balance and fell to the ground. She sustained a fracture of her right anide.

The testimony shows that the defendant kept garden tools for the use of the tenants in the trailer park; that the plaintiff’s husband had used these tools on prior occasions; and that it was the custom to place these tools in a leaning position against the outside wall of the tool room. Prom time to time the tenants would use these garden tools and then return them and lean them against the wall of the tool room. At the time of the plaintiff’s accident, the lawn mower involved was leaning against this Avail, to the right of, and next to the door of the tool room. The plaintiff testified that in walking from the office to the door of the tool room she walked past the tools that were leaning against the side of the building; that as she opened the door to the tool room she saw the handle of the laArn moAver leaning against the wall and that it was right alongside of her. She did not look down to the ground and did not see the Avheels of the mower. The mower was a normal push-type mower and had metal wheels. She also testified that Avhen her right heel came in contact with the Avheel she realized that it was the lawn mower because she had just seen it as she went in the door.