Kramer Service Inc. v. Wilkins, Sup. Ct. Of Miss.,

184 Miss. 483, 186 So. 625 (Miss. 1939)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D is the owner and operator of a large hotel. Clockey registered as a guest and was given a room, to which he was conducted by a bellboy. Mr. Clockey was the district sales representative of an oil company, and P was the local representative. Clockey was to have a conference with P. Clockey wanted to telephone P on his arrival and expected that a telephone would be in his room. There was no telephone therein, and that the windows could not be raised nor the transom lowered so as to give ventilation. There was a break in the glass cone-shaped and about twenty inches in length at the base, the broken portion clinging nevertheless in the transom. In looking for a phone, Clockey informed the hotel clerk of the objectionable condition of the room, including a reference to the condition of the transom. The clerk explained that there was a convention in session at the hotel, and that the room assigned was the only one left, but that a better room could be given on the next day. P came to Clockey's room, and when P was in the act of leaving the room he opened the door in an ordinary manner, and the broken piece of the transom fell striking P upon the head. P sustained three wounds on his head. Evidence indicated that the door's disrepair had existed for a long enough time to charge D with notice of it. The wound did not heal, and two years after the injury it was found that at the point of the injury a skin cancer had developed. The wound on the temple did not heal. Some months after the injury P was advised by his local physician to visit a specialist in skin diseases. P finally did in January, 1937, about two years after the injury, and it was then found that at the point where the injury occurred to P's temple, a skin cancer had developed, of which a cure had not been fully effected at the time of the trial, some three years after the injury first mentioned. P sued for a large sum in damages, averring and contending that the cancer resulted from the stated injury. Two physicians or medical experts, and only two were introduced as witnesses, and both were specialists in skin diseases and dermal traumatisms. One testified that it was possible that a trauma such as appellee suffered upon his temple, could or would cause a skin cancer at the point of injury, but that the chances that such a result would ensue from such a cause would be only one out of one hundred cases. The other testified that there is no causal connection whatever between trauma and cancer, and went on to illustrate that if there were such a connection nearly every person of mature age would be suffering with cancer. D had requested an instruction regarding the cancer in that it should not be taken into account by the jury. That instruction was refused. The jury gave the verdict to P in the sum of twenty thousand dollars. P was given the jury verdict and D appealed.