Bock v. Hamilton Square Baptist Church

PRESTON, J.

After consideration of this cause, we hereby adopt as our opinion herein, the following opinion prepared by Mr. Justice Spence, Acting P. J., for the honorable District Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Two:

“Upon a trial by the court sitting without a jury plaintiffs recovered judgment in the sum of $11,000 as damages resulting from personal injuries sustained by plaintiff Georgia Bock. From this judgment defendant appeals.

“The plaintiffs were husband and wife. The defendant corporation was the owner of a three-story apartment house located on the southeast corner of Post and Steiner streets in San Francisco. Plaintiffs rented from the defendant through Mrs. Hungate, defendant’s manager, the rear apartment on the second floor. This apartment could be entered through the main hallways from the front entrance of the building on Post street or by means of a stairway in the rear of the building. Said rear stairway was not leased to any tenant but was retained by defendant for the common use of the tenants in the three rear apartments. The record on appeal does not contain a detailed description of said stairway and the photographs which were introduced in evidence are not before us. It appears, however, that there was a railing at the sides of the steps and also at the sides of a platform which was located about opposite the rear door of plaintiffs’ apartment. This railing was about 3i feet high and consisted of perpendicular boards surmounted by a grooved railing, the top of the boards fitting into the groove in the railing.

“When plaintiffs rented the apartment there were clothes lines paralleling the railing on three sides of the platform. These lines were about a foot and one-half or two feet above the railings and were attached to the posts at the corners of the platform. They were old and dirty and the plaintiff L. A. Bock replaced them. These clothes lines were actually used by both plaintiffs and Mrs. Hungate, the defendant’s manager, who resided in the rear apartment on the first floor, but it does not appear that other tenants made use of them.

[287]

There was also located on this platform a garbage can furnished by the owner.

“The accident happened on June 24, 1928. The plaintiff Georgia Bock went out onto the rear stairway from plaintiffs’ apartment, went up a few steps to the platform and was in the act of hanging a tea towel on one of the clothes lines when she fell approximately 18 feet to the ground below. There was no other witness to the accident and the injured woman could not tell what had happened from the time she was hanging out the towel until the time she regained consciousness. Her husband was attracted by the loud crash and found his wife unconscious on the ground. He also found there the garbage can and its contents, together with portions of the boards and railing. The railings and boards were introduced as exhibits in the trial court. Plaintiffs state that these exhibits establish the fact that due to decay and corrosion the boards and nails were in an unsafe condition. Defendant replies that the portion of the transcript relating to the introduction of the exhibits does not so state. These exhibits are not before us but we do not believe that defendant seriously questions the unsafe condition which existed. It appears that long before the accident, Mrs. Hungate, defendant’s manager, knew that certain portions of the stairway were in bad condition, as the carpenter who had been engaged to do some repairing thereon had told her that ‘the whole back stairway should be reconditioned because it was in poor condition’.