## Facts

- A customer delivered an automobile in good condition to a paid public parking facility in downtown St. Louis and received a claim stub; an attendant took possession and parked the car.
- Retrieval procedures required presenting the stub to the office, after which an attendant brought the car from an upper level, indicating the facility’s control over access and movement of vehicles.
- When the customer returned to pick up the car, it was returned in a damaged and wrecked condition, allegedly from an attendant’s negligent operation on the premises.
- The plaintiff sued the defendants associated with the parking operation, alleging a bailment for hire and negligence causing property damage.
- A key factual dispute was whether the named defendants were the operators/bailees responsible for the vehicle while it was stored.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiff’s evidence that the car was delivered in good condition and returned damaged while in the parking operator’s exclusive control was sufficient to submit negligence to the jury under a bailment/res ipsa theory.
2. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to allow the plaintiff to reopen the case during a recess to present additional evidence of a defendant’s management or control of the parking facility.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the directed verdict for defendants and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held the plaintiff made a submissible case for the jury under res ipsa loquitur in a bailment-for-hire setting.
- The court held the trial court abused its discretion by denying the request to reopen to supply additional proof of defendants’ control/management when it could be produced with minimal delay and without prejudice.

## Legal Principles

- In a bailment for hire, when property is delivered in good condition to a bailee and is returned damaged while under the bailee’s exclusive control, the circumstances may permit an inference of negligence sufficient to reach the jury under res ipsa loquitur.
- A directed verdict is improper when reasonable jurors could infer negligence from circumstantial evidence of exclusive control and unexplained damage occurring during the bailment.
- A trial court has discretion to permit reopening of evidence, but it abuses that discretion when reopening would not cause unfair surprise, prejudice, or disruption and would allow proof on a material point necessary to decide the case on the merits.

## Conclusion

The court held that damage to an automobile occurring while in the paid parking operator’s exclusive custody supported submitting negligence to the jury under res ipsa loquitur, and that the trial court erred by directing a verdict and refusing a timely request to reopen for additional proof of defendants’ control, requiring reversal and remand for a new trial.


Bommer v. Stedelin, 237 S.W.2d 225 (Mo. Ct. App. 1951)