[DOWNLOAD] "Keenan v. E. M. Loews" by Supreme Court of Minnesota ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free

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• Title: Keenan v. E. M. Loews
• Author : Supreme Court of Minnesota
• Release Date : January 01, 1939
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 62 KB

Description

COX, Justice. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, who alleged that she was injured by the fall of a seat which she was occupying in the defendants theatre. The only exception is to the denial of the defendants motion for a directed verdict. No question was raised as to the control of the premises by the defendant. The jury could have found that the plaintiff was an invitee, having entered the theatre with her husband and son upon tickets which had been purchased. Some time after the plaintiff had taken her seat, which was the second in from the aisle, she got up to permit other people to pass her who were on their way to vacant seats in the same row. In about an hour she got up a second time to allow other people who were brought by the usher to pass her. She pushed her seat up so that there would be room for them to pass, pulled the seat down, and as she was in the act of sitting down, the seat broke and she fell with the front part of the seat resting on her ankles and its back upon the floor. She noticed nothing wrong with the seat before the accident. After she was taken to the managers office her husband returned with an usher and looked at the seat with the aid of a flash light. The seat rested on brackets which were a little loose. There were shoulders, one half an inch wide, which were screwed to the bottom of the seat. These shoulders were designed to rest upon the brackets. This is all the plaintiffs husband testified that he observed at that time. The seat was then taken to the managers office where the husband examined it again and you could see where the screws came out of the wood; * * * the holes were like if you pulled the screws out with a claw hammer, and the wood, to his knowledge was rotten, it wasnt sound; * * * the wood was all broken around it, split like. Upon cross-examination the plaintiffs husband was asked: So that the way you want to leave it now, regardless of what you may have said before, Mr. Keenan, the way you want to leave it now is that when you looked at the bottom of the seat immediately after the accident all that you observed was that in certain places, in certain of the holes where screws had been, it looked as if they had been pulled out with a claw hammer? To this he answered, Correct. Later on, in redirect examination, the husband testified that when he examined the seat in the managers office the holes were sheared off on one side as if something had been pulled off with a claw hammer; and that upon the side of the holes it didnt look so good -- it looked as if it was gone all rotten. The defendant contends that the plaintiffs husband is bound by his answer in cross-examination except insofar as it was qualified by his further statement on re-direct examination, relying upon Sullivan v. Boston Elevated Railway, 224 Mass. 405, 112 N.E. 1025, and Martin v. Boston Elevated Railway, 262 Mass. 542, 160 N.E. 300. We think the contention is unsound. As already appears, the husband made two examinations of the seat, the first one as the seat lay in the row, and the second one at the managers office. This question as framed directed the witnesss attention to what he observed immediately after the accident. It was for the jury to determine whether the question on cross-examination did not specifically refer to this first examination. The testimony in redirect examination seems to bear this out. The result is that, taken most favorably to the defendant, the husbands testimony was conflicting and it was for the jury to determine to what it amounted. Thibeault v. Poole, 283 Mass. 480, 482, 186 N.E. 632; Bennett v. Fitzgerald, 284 Mass. 535, 537, 188 N.E. 247; Compare Coyle v. Worcester Consolidated Street Railway, 273 Mass. 475, 477, 173 N.E. 586; Crowley v. Swanson, 283 Mass. 82, 84, 85, 186 N.E. 46; Garland v. Stetson, 292 Mass. 95, 97-98, 197 N.E. 679.

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