## Facts

- Louis and Esther Niman rented a fifth-floor apartment in an eleven-story building owned by Plaza House, Inc. and managed by William C. Haas.
- The building used a centralized hot-water heating system with boilers and pumps that circulated hot water through pipes and radiators in the apartments.
- In the Nimans’ bedroom, the radiator’s piping included a shut-off valve and fittings; the radiator and connected pipes were concealed by a metal cover, with only a temperature-control knob accessible to tenants.
- Defendants replaced older “butterfly” valves with newer valves allowing greater rotation so tenants could regulate heat more precisely.
- On December 17, 1964, Esther Niman awoke to intense heat and steam; when she stepped onto the bedroom floor, it was filled with hot water and slime, causing her to fall and suffer injuries.
- Hot water escaped into the bedroom through a rupture in a fitting in the radiator piping; the incident also caused significant property damage to the apartment’s contents.
- The Nimans sued for personal injuries, loss of services, medical expenses, and property damage, proceeding under res ipsa loquitur.
- A jury returned a total verdict of $25,800 for plaintiffs; defendants appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs could invoke res ipsa loquitur when tenants could operate a radiator control knob, allegedly negating defendants’ “exclusive management and control” of the instrumentality.
2. Whether the res ipsa verdict-directing instruction was reversibly erroneous because it added “superior knowledge” and “does not ordinarily happen when those in charge use due care” language beyond the approved pattern instruction.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the judgment for plaintiffs.
- Res ipsa loquitur was properly submitted because the rupture occurred in a concealed component of a centralized heating system owned, maintained, and serviced by defendants; tenants’ routine operation of the control knob did not amount to control over the injury-producing instrumentality.
- The modified res ipsa instruction was unnecessary in adding “superior knowledge” terminology, but it did not prejudice defendants and therefore was not reversible error.

## Legal Principles

- Res ipsa loquitur permits an inference of negligence when: (1) the occurrence is of a kind that does not ordinarily happen if those in charge use due care; (2) the instrumentality causing injury was under the defendant’s management and control; and (3) the defendant has superior knowledge or means of information about the cause.
- “Exclusive control” is assessed functionally; a plaintiff’s foreseeable, ordinary use of a device (such as adjusting a control) does not defeat res ipsa when the defendant retains control over the system’s design, inspection, maintenance, and repair and the failure occurs in an internal or concealed component.
- Deviation from approved jury instruction forms is disfavored, but an added element that does not misstate the law or mislead the jury—and that does not prejudice the complaining party—does not require reversal.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a res ipsa loquitur verdict for tenants injured by a rupture in a concealed radiator fitting within a building-wide hot-water heating system, holding that tenants’ ability to adjust a radiator knob did not negate the landlord and manager’s control, and that surplus language in the verdict-directing instruction was nonprejudicial.


Niman v. Plaza House, Inc., 471 S.W.2d 207 (Mo. 1971)