Brubaker v. Pacific Turf Club

DEVINE, J. Plaintiff was awarded a verdict by a jury in amount $17,500 because of injuries she sustained in a fall at Golden Gate Fields, a horse-racing track in Albany, Alameda County. Judgment was entered on the verdict and motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for new trial were denied. Appellant, operator of the race track, appeals from the judgment.

Plaintiff, a 72-year-old woman, paid her way into the track, with a woman companion, a Mrs. Farmer. She seated herself on the mezzanine floor, because of Mrs. Farmer’s wishes, an area which plaintiff had not previously visited, although she had been in other parts of the grounds on a few earlier visits. Mrs. Farmer absented herself from time to time in order to give financial backing to her convictions on prospective racing results. Meanwhile, plaintiff experienced an increasing need for visiting a restroom, and looked about unsuccessfully for an attendant who might assist or direct her. She observed rubbish such as parts of sandwiches and paper on the floor, and she was afraid to leave her seat, until the demands of nature became so urgent that she was obliged to do so. People were milling about in the passageway, no race being then under way, so she had to walk near a hamburger stand. On the floor, there was foodstuff or vomitus, which she could not identify, in some three separate positions, and she tried to avoid them, but her foot came down on one of these, or on a fourth bit which was in the vicinity, and she slipped, fell, and fractured her hip. She testified, without objection, that just before she fell she had heard a man say that he had almost fallen.

Mrs. Farmer, who was at other parts of the track at the time of the fall, testified that on the floor about the area of the accident there was litter and refuse, although it does not appear just how long before plaintiff’s fall this was. Both plaintiff and Mrs. Farmer testified that plaintiff was wearing flat heel shoes.

The defense produced two witnesses. The first was a janitor foreman, who testified to the practices of maintenance on the deck where plaintiff fell, but who had no knowledge of his [158]own of the accident or of the condition of the floor at the time. He testified that the deck is swept with large brooms while the races are on and most people are watching, not walking, and that in the intervals, while people are eating at the hamburger or hot dog stands, two pick-up men go about with little pans and brooms getting up everything they can. There are garbage cans, into which all manner of debris removed from the deck is deposited, but the cans fill up, and the men then push the garbage down and try to get more in them, and when they are filled to capacity, they try to get an empty can from some other place. He testified that he had not heard of anyone’s falling on debris except plaintiff in the 10 years he has been at the track, but changed this on being cross-examined with the use of his deposition, to say that he had heard of persons who fell, but not of anyone who had been hurt.