Hagan v. Delaware River Steel Co.

Citations

• 240 Pa. 222
• 87 A. 574
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 653

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Care of premises — Open pit — Duty toward licensee —Evidence—Nonsuit.</p> <p>1. In an action to recover damages for death, it was held that.a nonsuit was properly entered where it appeared that plaintiff’s decedent, a woman, for purposes exclusively her own, gained admission after dark to the plant of a large and partially unused steel works, to find her father who was a workman employed at the further end of the plant, and being unfamiliar with the surroundings started down a path which, if pursued, would have led her in safety to her destination, but wandered from the path and followed a track in the snow leading to an abandoned section of the plant, where she fell into a deep pit in the darkness, receiving injuries which caused her death. If the decedent were a trespasser, she took the risk of injury unless wantonly or intentionally inflicted, and if she were a licensee, no negligence was shown and the entry of a nonsuit was proper.</p> <p>2. In such case the court committed no error in striking from the record testimony to the effect that the decedent had been instructed by a watchman as to the direction in which she should go, where' there was no evidence whatever to show what, if any, authority the watchman had to admit strangers to the plant under such circumstances.</p> <p>3. In such case the court committed no error in excluding testimony tending to show that people not employed in the plant were allowed to go through the same at night along the path taken by the decedent, where there was no claim made that the decedent had any knowledge whatever of any such use of the path, or had relied upon the fact that it- was open to outsiders.</p>