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Lukehart v. West Ninth Street Partners3/23/2000
JUDGMENT: AFFIRMED.
Plaintiff-appellant Miss Cora Ann Lukehart ( Lukehart ) appeals from the granting of defendants-appellees West Ninth Street Partners, Inc.'s ( WNSP ) and Mr. Matthew Gillespie's ( Gillespie ) joint motion for summary judgment. For the reasons adduced below, we affirm.
A review of the record on appeal indicates that Lukehart and a group of her friends were celebrating New Year's Eve on December 31, 1996, in downtown Cleveland. At a bar/restaurant known as The Blind Pig, Lukehart and her friends met Mr. Craig Coffey. Lukehart had known Coffey since early December 1996, and had visited his apartment on three or four separate occasions prior to that night. At some point, near closing time, Coffey suggested that they go to his apartment on the third floor of 1281 West Ninth Street to continue their celebration. The building at 1281 West Ninth Street, a warehouse-type structure, was in the process of being renovated and remodeled into apartments and was owned by WNSP, whose sole shareholder was Gillespie. Coffey, with the permission of Gillespie, was permitted to live in the building in exchange for monitoring the otherwise vacant building, but Coffey did not pay any rent.
On the third floor of the building, at the top of the stairwell, there was a third-floor hallway with two doors in that hallway. Through one door, Coffey had constructed some walls to divide the large space into a smaller self-contained section in which he had set up housekeeping. The other door was marked Danger-Keep Out and had a hook-and-eye latch securing the door. This other door with signage led to an unfinished area where, along with construction debris, there was a hole in the floor. This hole, an abandoned elevator shaft, was completely surrounded on three sides by a four-foot high barrier constructed from sheets of plywood, the plywood being firmly secured to large wooden posts. The fourth side of the shaft was a wall of the building which went from the floor to the ceiling. The shaft itself, inside the barricade, was uncovered.
In the early morning hours of January 1, 1997, between 3 to 4 a.m., Lukehart, accompanied by a female friend and Mr. Coffey, went to Coffey's apartment. The trio shared more beer at the apartment. After a short time, Lukehart's female friend decided to leave. Coffey escorted the female friend from the building and then returned to his apartment. Upon Coffey's return to the apartment, he and Lukehart engaged in sexual relations, falling asleep prior to 5 a.m. Lukehart awoke several hours later to find that she was at the bottom of the elevator shaft, naked with injuries to her legs and head. Lukehart did not know how she came to be at the bottom of the darkened elevator shaft, but she speculated that she had been sleepwalking. Toxicology testing on Lukehart's blood, drawn from her person at least seven hours after she awoke, indicated that her blood alcohol level was 0.04%.
Coffey awoke at 11:00 a.m. that New Years day. Finding no one beside him, he at first assumed that Lukehart had gone home. Upon seeing her clothes, he went looking for Lukehart on the fourth floor; but did not find her. In searching the third floor, he heard Lukehart calling for help. Coffey followed the voice over to the elevator shaft and looked over the intact barricade. The shaft was dark and he could not see Lukehart, but Lukehart told him that she was at the bottom of the shaft. See Coffey deposition at 54. Coffey called emergency personnel, who rescued Lukehart and transported her to a local hospital.
Lukehart filed this premises liability negligence action on January 24, 1997. Subsequent to responsive pleading and discovery, defendants-a
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