REGAN v. KEIGHLEY METAL CEILING ROOFING CO., 220 Mass. 261 (1915)

107 N.E. 984

HELEN REGAN vs. KEIGHLEY METAL CEILING AND ROOFING COMPANY. JAMES C. REGAN vs. SAME.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Suffolk.January 21, 1915.
February 25, 1915.

Present: RUGG, C.J., LORING, BRALEY, CROSBY, PIERCE, JJ.

Negligence, Staging over highway. Way, Public.

If a painter erects over a sidewalk in front of a theatre a temporary staging built of upright trestles with planks laid from one trestle to another and not fastened and, when the sidewalk is crowded, his workmen leave the staging unprotected and unguarded for ten or fifteen minutes during which a gust of wind blows it over and it strikes and injures a person entering the theatre, in an action against the painter for the injuries so received, the jury are warranted in finding that the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care and that the defendant was negligent.

PIERCE, J.

The facts in these two cases are set out in the case of Regan v. Superb Theatre, Inc., ante, 259. It is clear that the

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jury properly could find that it was negligent to leave the staging unprotected and unguarded for ten or fifteen minutes in the middle of a crowded sidewalk. It is equally clear that the jury could find that the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care.

Exceptions overruled.

F.P. Garland, for the defendant.

T.J. Ahern, for the plaintiffs.