Seitzman v. Srere Corp.

ARCHBALD, J.,

pro tem.

Plaintiff was an employee of a firm which occupied a portion of the sixth floor of a building owned by defendant. On March 21, 1927, coming into the building on his way to work, he found, as he said, the elevator doors open, and the light being dim he stepped through the doors and fell into the basement, injuring himself. His employer was insured under the Workmen’s Compensation, Insurance and Safety Act by the Hartford Accident

&

Indemnity Company, and an award having been made by the Industrial Accident Commission of the state in favor of the employee and against said insurance carrier for the injuries thus sustained, the latter intervened in the instant action, praying that it might have a first lien on any recovery by plaintiff for the sums expended by it under said award. The case was tried before a jury, which returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $15,000. From the judgment entered on said verdict defendant has appealed. No brief on appeal was filed by plaintiff, but the intervener has responded to appellant’s brief.

The amended complaint, and also in effect the complaint of intervener, alleges that on the day in question “the defendant so negligently and unlawfully maintained and conducted said elevator shaft and the doors thereof that said doors were permitted to be left open and said elevator way or shaft to be darkened and unguarded while the elevator car was at some point above said ground floor, and negligently failed to have said passageway or hallway and

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elevator shaft properly and sufficiently lighted, in consequence whereof plaintiff, while lawfully upon said premises and properly on said ground floor in said building . . . , believing that the elevator car was there in said shaft on said ground floor in waiting and in readiness to receive passengers for carriage, and induced to so believe by the fact that said doors were standing open, as aforesaid, and believing that by entering said doors he would be stepping into the aforesaid elevator car, and it appearing to him in the uncertain and dim light of the hallway or passageway that the elevator was on said floor, he entered and passed part way through said doorway and doors, and the said elevator car not being in that portion of the shaft, but at some point above said ground floor at that time, without any fault on his part, the said plaintiff fell . . . from the ground floor of said building to the lower floor or basement thereof”, receiving the injuries of which he complained. As to who actually opened the elevator doors and failed to close them prior to the accident the evidence is silent. Plaintiff testified in substance that the elevator shaft was about twenty to thirty feet from the open entrance to the building, in a passageway about four feet wide, on the left side of which was a soft-drink stand, and that about five feet from that “was the elevator on the left side”; that there was a chandelier about five feet from the entrance which was never lighted, “only at night”; that “over on the right side of the elevator they had a little bulb, and there was a staircase that would turn around to the left going up to the building. There would also be a light there”; that he arrived about 7:30 A. M. on his way to work; that it was “rather a gloomy day . . . There was no lights whatsoever in the hallway; just a light coming from the street into that long hall”; that the elevator doors were open as he had seen them before, “and with that confidence . . . I just walked straight in, because it was a common occurrence at times”.