## Facts

- A 64-year-old paying patron attended a motion picture at a theater operated by the defendant.
- The seating layout required patrons in certain rows to step up from an aisle to enter the row and step down to exit back into the aisle.
- After a roughly three-hour showing, the auditorium remained darkened to allow projection and patron exit.
- While leaving her seat, the patron assumed the aisle was level, missed the step down, fell forward, struck her head on a metal portion of a seat, and was injured.
- The patron alleged the step configuration and lighting were unsafe and that the theater failed to warn or make the condition reasonably safe.
- The theater presented evidence that its lighting and step design conformed to practices commonly used in other movie theaters.
- A jury returned a defense verdict; the patron appealed, challenging the legal adequacy of the jury instructions on negligence, custom, invitee rights, and contributory negligence.

## Issues

1. Whether compliance with customary theater construction and lighting practices conclusively established due care, removing negligence from the jury.
2. Whether a theater operator owes paying patrons an affirmative duty to use reasonable care to maintain reasonably safe aisles, steps, and lighting and to warn of non-obvious hazards.
3. Whether the patron was contributorily negligent as a matter of law for failing to see or remember the step in the darkened theater.
4. Whether the jury instructions improperly stated the effect of custom and the patron’s right to assume the premises were reasonably safe, thereby failing to submit key liability questions correctly.

## Decision

- The judgment for the theater was reversed and the case was remanded for a new trial.
- Evidence of compliance with industry custom was not conclusive; negligence remained a question for the jury under an ordinary-care standard.
- The theater owed paying patrons an affirmative duty of reasonable and ordinary care to keep the premises reasonably safe, including lighting and step/aisle configuration.
- Contributory negligence was not established as a matter of law on this record; it was for the jury under proper instructions.
- The trial court’s instructions inadequately explained the limited role of custom and the patron’s entitlement to assume reasonable safety, requiring a new trial.

## Legal Principles

- The governing standard is ordinary care under the circumstances; industry custom cannot replace that legal standard.
- Conformity with customary or “approved” methods is admissible as evidence of due care but is not controlling or dispositive.
- Operators of places of public amusement owe invitees an active, affirmative duty to use reasonable care to maintain reasonably safe premises and to warn of non-obvious dangers.
- Contributory negligence ordinarily presents a fact question when visibility, lighting, and premises configuration affect what a reasonably prudent person would perceive and do.
- Erroneous or incomplete jury instructions on the duty owed, the evidentiary role of custom, and the plaintiff’s right to assume reasonable safety constitute reversible error when they affect core liability determinations.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the jury was not properly instructed on the theater’s duty of reasonable care to patrons, the non-conclusive evidentiary role of industry custom, and the allocation of negligence and contributory negligence questions to the jury.


LaSell v. Tri-States Theatre Corp., 11 N.W.2d 36 (Iowa 1943)