## Facts

- Claude Weathers leased and operated a downtown Wichita cigar and lunch business open to the public.
- A narrow hallway along the east side of the premises led from the customer area to a toilet; a nearby shoeshine parlor also used the hallway and toilet.
- A trapdoor was located in the hallway floor approximately midway between the lunch counter area and the toilet.
- Joe Campbell, a long-time customer, entered the business on a Sunday morning, remained in the front area for 15–20 minutes, and then walked down the hallway toward the toilet.
- Campbell stepped into an open trapdoor, fell, and suffered a broken arm and other injuries.
- Campbell had used the hallway and toilet on many prior occasions and had not been told they were not for customer or public use.
- Campbell sued Weathers, the building owner’s trustee, and the owner’s manager for negligence; the trial court sustained all defendants’ demurrers to Campbell’s evidence and entered judgment for defendants.

## Issues

1. Whether Campbell was a trespasser, licensee, or invitee when he used the hallway and toilet in connection with Weathers’s business.
2. Whether Campbell’s evidence was sufficient to require submission to the jury on Weathers’s alleged negligence (rather than disposition by demurrer).
3. Whether Campbell’s conduct established contributory negligence as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Kansas Supreme Court held Campbell was an invitee of Weathers when he used the hallway and toilet.
- The court rejected the argument that a regular customer loses invitee status merely because he did not make a purchase on the particular visit when injured.
- The court held the evidence permitted a jury to find Weathers negligent in allowing an open trapdoor in a passageway foreseeably used by customers, without adequate warning or safeguards.
- The court held contributory negligence was not established as a matter of law; it remained a jury question on the evidence presented.
- The judgment sustaining Weathers’s demurrer was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings as to Weathers.

## Legal Principles

- A person entering a place of business with the intent to do business then or in the future is an invitee; invitee status does not depend on making a purchase during the particular visit.
- The scope of a business invitation may include restrooms and customary access ways when customer use is permitted or implied by the premises’ arrangement and prior practice.
- A business operator owes an invitee reasonable care to maintain invited areas in a reasonably safe condition and to warn of or protect against hazards that are not reasonably apparent.
- When reasonable factfinders could differ on negligence or contributory negligence, those issues should be submitted to the jury rather than resolved on demurrer.

## Conclusion

The court treated a regular customer’s use of an impliedly available restroom and hallway as within the business invitation and held that, on the plaintiff’s evidence, both the operator’s negligence and the plaintiff’s contributory negligence presented factual questions for the jury, requiring reversal of the demurrer as to the operator.


Campbell v. Weathers, 153 Kan. 316, 111 P.2d 72 (Kan. 1941)