Reviewing One of My Favorite Tort Cases on Banana Split Day
It’s National Banana Split Day!
If you’re a traditionalist, that means you’re celebrating with scoops of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream, topped with pineapple, chocolate syrup, and strawberries, and further topped with whipped cream, nuts, and maraschino cherries. And, of course, all that is squeezed between a lengthwise-sliced banana.
Just make sure you throw away that banana peel in the trash—and not the floor!
The banana-peel-on-the-floor scenario is the factual background in one of my all-time favorite cases to read and teach.
In Anjou vs. Boston Elevated Railway Company, 208 Mass. 273 (1911), the plaintiff, Helen Anjou, was walking in a railroad terminal towards her train and slipped on a banana peel. She sued the Boston Elevated Railway Company for negligence. The Massachusetts Supreme Court considered whether the railroad company had breached its duty to maintain a safe platform. Witnesses testified to various descriptions of the banana peel:
"felt dry and gritty as if there were dirt upon it"
"tramped over a good deal"
"flattened down, and black in color"
"every bit of it was black, there wasn't a particle of yellow"
"black, flattened out and gritty"
The court held that the question of the company’s liability was usually for the jury, who might have found that the banana peel had been left on the platform for a considerable period of time and, further, that the banana peel had been left on the platform negligently by company’s employees in violation of the company’s duty to keep its station reasonably safe for its passengers.
Because of the strength of the evidence, however, the court ruled as a matter of law and found that the defendant breached its duty to maintain a safe platform by allowing the peel to remain on the ground for too long, as indicated by the condition the banana peel.
The plaintiff won $1,250, which, in 1911, is equivalent in purchasing power to about $40,222.50 today, according to one inflation calculator.
I usually use this case as an introduction to premises liability and a discussion of the common law duties owed to trespassers, licensees, and invitees by landowners and occupiers of land.
In Anjou, the plaintiff was an invitee, which meant that the company owed the plaintiff a general duty to use reasonable care in keeping its property reasonably safe for the benefit of its customers. This general duty includes the duty to warn of or make safe nonobvious, dangerous conditions known to the landowner as well as the duty to make reasonable inspections to discover dangerous conditions and make them safe.
