LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

Court decisions can be quite instructive. A case in point is M.N. Bleich & Co. v. Emmett, 295 S.W. 223 (Tex. C.C.A. 1927).

A customer came to a grocery store to buy feed. While there, he alleged, he expressed a desire to urinate and asked the privilege of using the store's toilet. He was directed to the back room, which was dark and had no light. In entering it, he fell into an open freight elevator pit in the room. While the man was on his hands and knees, an employee of the store lowered the freight elevator unto the man. THe facts do not indicate whether the man was able to urinate under these circumstances.

The court affirmed a judgment for the customer, finding negligence by the store to its invitee. There was some question whether the store's employee had authority to direct the customer where to urinate. It seems that there in fact was no toilet in the back room--just stacks of feed. The employee told the customer "that if he wanted to urinate to go to the dark corner behind the hay; that that was the place used for such purposes." One witness testified that for ten years "he would sometimes go where the elevator was to urinate."

On a motion for rehearing, however, the appeals court changed its mind and reversed the judgment for the customer. "The undisputed evidence shows that appellant had not provided a toilet in the rear of his feed compartment for use by any one; such place as a toilet or place to urinate; and that he had no knowledge that such place had ever been so used. Under such circumstances there was, we now think, no invitation, either expressed or implied by appellant extended to appellee to use any part of the feed compartment as a place to urinate." Id. at 228.

The condition of the feed was not addressed, and presumably this subject remained in a void.