Allred v. Orth

SEAWELL, J.

On February 15, 1924, the appellants, John G. Orth and Mary Paul, were engaged in conducting a hotel and rooming-house in the city of Los Angeles, consisting of 248 rooms. On February 15, 1924, at about the hour of 7 o’clock P. M., respondent, evidently a man past middle life, upon the invitation of a guest of said hotel and rooming-house, called upon said guest upon a matter of business. Respondent had never before been upon said premises, and upon arriving at said hotel and rooming-house he informed

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the clerk at the desk that he had come to call upon said guest and the clerk thereupon requested a bystander to conduct respondent to said guest’s room. He was so conducted the greater portion of the way and directed as to the balance of the way. Some thirty-six feet of the passageway, which extended through a court, was along and over a porch four feet in width. Said porch and passageway was built at an elevation of some sixteen inches above the ground surface. One side of the porch abutted against the wall of the building while the other side was open and without guard-rail or any obstruction that would afford reasonable protection to persons using said porch from unwittingly walking off of the same under the darkness of night. Eespondent transacted the business he had with said guest within a minute or two and started to retrace his steps along the unlighted way which he had traversed a few minutes before and in so attempting his misdirected steps led him over the edge of the porch and he fell to the ground, sustaining painful and serious injuries. Upon striking the ground respondent’s left foot and anide were thrown backward and under the body in such a position that the weight of his body was thrown thereon, causing, a severe sprain and producing a partial fracture of the lower end of the fibula. X-ray plates taken some months thereafter showed that the bone had united, leaving traces of some enlargement of the bone where it overlaps the ankle joint and indications that the injured member would probably never completely regain its former flexible state. Immediately after he received said injuries respondent was taken to the emergency hospital, where he was given first aid, and on the following day he was taken to his quarters, where he was confined to his bed for a period of three months, suffering more or less pain. Thereafter, for several months, he was able to walk only with the aid of crutches. For a period of about eleven months he received no skilled medical attention and the only treatment his limb received consisted of the application of liniments, ointments, hot applications, masseur treatment and other homelike treatments. During this period he employed for a short time a Chinese herbalist, who applied poultices made from herbs to reduce the inflammation. Later he attended a clinic and was assigned to a department where he was treated for a period of two months by a physician.