## Facts

- The defendant, a lessee in control of a Boston building, maintained an interior corridor used to walk between Tremont Street and Pemberton Square.
- The corridor contained tenant listings, elevators, a sales stand, a telephone booth, and a U.S. mail box.
- Members of the public had long used the corridor and interior stairs as a passage between the two public ways, and the defendant knew of that practice.
- The plaintiff frequently used the corridor and entered from Tremont Street to mail letters using the interior mail box.
- After mailing the letters, the plaintiff walked toward the Pemberton Square exit and stepped onto a seven-step iron stairway.
- The stairway collapsed, injuring the plaintiff.
- There was evidence permitting findings that the plaintiff used due care and that the stairway was negligently maintained, if the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiff was an invitee or a mere licensee when using the corridor and stairway to mail letters and exit to Pemberton Square.
2. Whether long-continued public use of a private interior passageway, known to the possessor, creates an implied invitation imposing a duty of reasonable care.
3. Whether the presence and use of a U.S. mail box in the corridor made the plaintiff an invitee of the defendant.

## Decision

- The court held the plaintiff was not an invitee but, at most, a licensee while using the corridor and stairway as a convenient passage.
- Long-continued public use of the corridor, even with the defendant’s knowledge, did not amount to an implied invitation.
- Use of the interior U.S. mail box did not connect the plaintiff’s presence to the defendant’s business or interests so as to create invitee status.
- Because the plaintiff was a licensee, the defendant did not owe a duty of ordinary reasonable care to maintain the stairway for that use.
- The trial judge properly entered judgment for the defendant after reserving leave, notwithstanding the jury’s verdict for the plaintiff; the plaintiff’s exceptions were overruled.

## Legal Principles

- Invitee status requires entry by express or implied invitation for a purpose connected to the possessor’s business or other interests; the possessor then owes a duty of reasonable care to keep the premises reasonably safe.
- A person using private premises solely for personal convenience, such as a shortcut between public ways, is generally a licensee.
- Tolerated public use of private property, without more, does not create an implied invitation or transform users into invitees.
- As to licensees, the possessor generally has no duty of ordinary care to make the premises safe for the licensee’s use; liability typically requires wanton or reckless conduct or affirmative acts increasing danger.
- Placement of a governmental facility (such as a U.S. mail box) on private premises does not, by itself, make entrants using it invitees of the possessor absent a showing that the use serves the possessor’s business or interests.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that the plaintiff’s use of the building corridor and stairway functioned as a permissive public shortcut rather than a visit connected to the defendant’s business, and that using the interior mail box did not change that status; therefore, the defendant owed no duty of reasonable care, and judgment for the defendant stood.


Brosnan v. Koufman, 2 N.E.2d 441 (Mass. 1936)