RENFROE v. ASHLEY

Negligence — Tenant injured falling down stairway — Failure to provide handrail claimed negligence of landlord — Tenant to prove landlord's negligence proximate cause of injury — Directed verdict for landlord proper, when — Evidence inconclusive on proximate cause.

Where the owner of a residence building rents the downstairs thereof to one person or family and the upstairs to another person, and the upstairs tenant falls down the interior stairway and sues the owner for damages on the basis that such fall and accompanying physical injuries were directly attributable to the negligence of the defendant in not providing a handrail as required by Section 4107.14, Revised Code, known as the handrail statute, it is still incumbent on the plaintiff in order to recover, even though the defendant is amenable to such statute, to adduce evidence from which reasonable minds can reach the conclusion that such negligence was the proximate cause of the fall and injuries, and, where the evidence is so meager and inconclusive on that point that a finding of proximate cause would rest solely on speculation and conjecture, it is proper for the trial court, on motion, to direct a verdict for the defendant.

ZIMMERMAN, J.

The bill of exceptions discloses that the downstairs and upstairs of the residence property in issue were not divided by partitions to form separate and independent units. The arrangements and facilities were such that a person or a family could occupy the whole house, or the downstairs of the house could be occupied by a person or family and another person or family could occupy the upstairs. The stairway down which plaintiff fell entered directly into the occupied downstairs living quarters, and access to the outside was through a door at the side of the house.

Section 4107.14, Revised Code, claimed as applying to the present case, is in the chapter entitled Division of Workshops and Factories and reads as follows:

"In tenement houses, apartments, manufactories, mills, shops, stores, churches, hotels, halls for public meetings, lecture rooms, restaurants, public library rooms, business offices of professional men and others doing business for or with the public, all public buildings, and other rooms or places of public resort or use, whether for the transaction of business or social enjoyment, the owners, directors, trustees, lessees, managers, controllers, or proprietors thereof shall provide and maintain for all stairs or stairways for ingress or egress, a substantial handrail extending from the top to the bottom thereof, and firmly fastened to the wall or other support or partition at the side of such stairs. The handrail shall be constructed of wood not less than one and one-half inches wide and two and one-half inches thick or of iron not less than one and one-half inches in diameter.

"No owner or person in charge, as director, trustee, lessee, manager, or proprietor, of such stairs or stairways shall neglect or refuse to provide and maintain in good repair such handrail. Such owner or person is liable to any person injured because of the want of such handrail and for any injury or damages to a person resulting from a defective handrail." (Emphasis supplied.)

Taking the quoted section in its entire context and invoking the rule of noscitur a sociis, i.e., the meaning of words may be indicated or controlled by those with which they are associated, it is hard to escape the conclusion that such section, by the use of the word, "apartments," in conjunction with the descriptive words accompanying it, is designed and intended to apply to premises of a more or less public character, habitually frequented by numbers of people. Therefore, it is at least doubtful whether the statute covers premises of the kind involved in the instant case.

Plaintiff was the only witness who described the cause of her fall, and the entire evidence on the subject, evoked during plaintiff's direct examination, is as follows:

"Q. Did you spend the night [the night of March 29] there? A. Yes, I did.

"Q. The following morning, March 30, 1956, I want you to tell the jury just what happened. A. It was approximately 7:30 and I was leaving my apartment to go to work and I fell down the stairs. I don't know whether I slipped or tripped or what happened. All of a sudden I was flying down and automatically reached for a handrail because there was one at my father's apartment, and I know I could have prevented the fall had there been a handrail —

"Mr. Fitch: I object and move the latter part stricken.

"The Court: Sustained and the latter part will be stricken. The jury will disregard the latter part."

Why plaintiff "slipped or tripped" is left to conjecture, and whether in the circumstances the presence of a handrail would have prevented the fall is of too speculative a nature to leave to a jury's guess. See Gedra v. Dallmer Co., 153 Ohio St. 258, 91 N.E.2d 256, 17 A.L.R. (2d), 453, and Boles v. Montgomery Ward Co., 153 Ohio St. 381, 388, 389, 92 N.E.2d 9, 13.

Moreover, if we assume that defendant was subject to the handrail statute and was negligent as a matter of law in not providing a handrail, the testimony given by plaintiff was too meager and inconclusive to support a finding that such negligence was the direct or proximate cause of plaintiff's unfortunate mishap. It need hardly be added that in order to recover for a negligent act it is essential to show that it was a proximate cause of the result complained of.

Consequently, we are of the opinion that the trial court properly directed a verdict and entered judgment for the defendant, and that the Court of Appeals erred to the prejudice of defendant in reversing. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas is affirmed.

Judgment reversed.

WEYGANDT, C.J., STEWART, TAFT, MATTHIAS, BELL and HERBERT, JJ., concur.