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2d 423
Plaintiff Anthony Csizmadia, was injured when he fell, while loading a very
heavy beer barrel, on a slick gummy floor in the warehouse cooler room of
defendant, P. Ballantine & Sons. Defendant appeals from an adverse verdict
and from denial of motion to set aside the verdict and for new trial, claiming
that
(1) as warning given plaintiff concerning the slippery floor absolves Ballantine
from any liability;
(3) plaintiff, as a matter of law, assumed the risk of the conditions which
caused his injury.
had contracted to buy beer from Ballantine. He was sent to the Ballantine
warehouse where he joined another employee of the trucker in loading beer
kegs onto a truck. The first step in this process took place in the cooler room
where the kegs were lifted and placed on a conveyor belt. The kegs in the
cooler room invariably 'sweated' profusely, thereby causing a wet floor surface.
This general condition was aggravated greatly in spots because the sweating
resulted in gummed tax labels slipping off onto the floor. The labels, pursuant
to law, had to be affixed on the beer barrels when they left the warehouse.
Picking the labels off the floor and replacing them on the kegs left a residue of
glue on the floor which, mixed with the water, created an extremely dangerous
condition.
6
When the plaintiff arrived at the cooler there was another, experienced, fellow
employee of the trucking company already loading the kegs. He told plaintiff,
upon the latter's arrival, 'Be careful, the floor is slippery.' He then instructed
plaintiff on his duties and resumed his own work. About twenty minutes later
after plaintiff had successfully lifted four or five kegs onto the conveyor, he
slipped in the course of lifting one of the 160 pound barrels, thereby seriously
injuring himself.
Defendant further contends that under Connecticut law a warning of the danger
To the contrary, Connecticut has embraced the more modern trend of opinion
which at least partially rejects the extremely favored position of the landowner
in the law of torts.1 Only two weeks after the decision in Laube v. Stevenson,
supra, the Supreme Court of Errors in Reboni v. Case Bros., 1951, 137 Conn.
501, 78 A.2d 887, clearly held that warning does not necessarily discharge the
duty of due care. There, two employees of a general contractor were burned by
electrocution upon close approach of a crane with which they were working to
high tension wires while doing aerial work above defendant's factory yard.
There was evidence that one of the plaintiffs not only was familiar with the
danger of working near 'hot' wires, but he had been warned of the danger and,
indeed, had had personal experience with these wires in the past. The court,
however, pointed to the extremely dangerous condition and held that the jury
was warranted in finding that something more than a warning was required to
discharge defendant's obligation to the plaintiffs.
10
The Reboni case, rather than any tortuous innuendo drawn from Laube v.
Stevenson, correctly represents Connecticut law on this point. Even if the law
were clear, however, that a 'warning' did discharge the landowner's duty, there
would still be a jury question as to whether the specific warning here given was
sufficient in light of the hidden danger represented by the glue spots. Because,
as Judge Hincks has pointed out, defendant was given a charge more favorable
than it deserved, this was specifically the question submitted to the jury; even
on this point, the jury decided for the plaintiff.
11
Judgment is affirmed.
'It would be surprising * * * if the general trend over the last one hundred years
toward wider accident liability had left the land occupier's citadel untouched. It
has not. The tendency of the law, here as elsewhere, has been towards an ever
fuller application of the requirement of reasonable care under all the