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Kay v. Menard6/27/2000
Ten years ago, Robert Kay tumbled down an elevator shaft from the fourth floor elevator opening to the basement of the Mongeon Building in the City of Woonsocket. He was seriously injured. He sued the owner of the building, Edward Menard, accusing Menard of negligence. A Superior Court trial jury awarded him $275,000 for his injuries and damages. Menard, in this appeal, challenges the final judgment entered in the case.
Facts/Case Travel
Robert Kay (Robert or the plaintiff) and Susan Bergeron (Susan), his girlfriend, lived together in a fourth-floor apartment in the five-story Mongeon Building. The building contained several retail businesses, as well as residential apartments. Edward Menard (Menard or the defendant), lived in a basement apartment and operated a retail business on the second floor of his building.
The building contained a single manually operated elevator. For a tenant to use the elevator, he or she first would summon the elevator by pressing a button next to the elevator door located in the hallway on each floor. That door could not be opened until the elevator had reached the particular floor from which the button had been pressed. When the elevator reached that floor, a mechanical interlock, designed to keep all the doors locked, then would disengage the door-locking mechanism, permitting the particular door to be opened. The interlock door system was designed to prevent any door from being opened when no elevator was present at a particular floor in order to prevent anyone from falling into the elevator shaft. Once the hallway elevator door was disengaged, the door could then be opened from the hallway and the person intending to use the elevator then would reach in and lift a wire inner-mesh gate attached to the elevator in order to enter the elevator. He or she, after entering, then would have to lower the wire mesh gate until it touched the floor of the elevator; otherwise, the elevator would not operate.
Every evening, the defendant, Menard, who lived in a basement apartment, typically would disable the elevator at his basement floor level until the following morning, by raising the inner-mesh gate a few inches above the elevator's floor. This prevented the elevator from being operated and provided some measure of security for his tenants. When a tenant, during evening and late hours, wished to use the elevator, he or she would press the button near the elevator door in the hallway where he or she was located. A loud buzzer then would sound in the defendant's basement apartment, and he would respond by lowering the elevator's inner-mesh gate to the elevator's floor, thereby setting the elevator in motion to respond to the floor from which the button had been pressed. Having explained the workings of the Mongeon Building's elevator, we turn now to the events that generated the instant litigation and the appeal now before us.
Sometime just before April 11, 1990, Robert proposed marriage to Susan, his girlfriend. She accepted his proposal. Later, on April 11, at about 6 p.m., they decided to celebrate their recent betrothal and went out to dinner at a restaurant across the street from the Mongeon Building. They dined and drank and, when leaving, ordered a take-out dinner for Menard, who they knew would be in his apartment. They returned to the Mongeon Building, and entered by a third-floor entrance which was accessible from the street sidewalk because the building was situated on a hillside. One of them pressed the elevator button to summon the elevator to the third floor. When the elevator reached that floor, they used it to go down to Menard's basement apartment and to give him the take-out dinner they had purchased for
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