## Facts

- Earl Hitz operated a commission business in St. Louis involving poultry and related goods.
- Access from the public sidewalk to Hitz’s premises included a sloping concrete runway used for moving goods.
- The runway regularly accumulated chicken manure, dirt, refuse, and water and required routine cleaning.
- Paubel, a U.S. mail carrier, delivered mail to Hitz’s premises as part of his regular route and had used the same runway for years.
- On the day of the incident, the runway was in its usual dirty and slippery condition.
- Paubel slipped and fell on the runway while delivering mail and suffered serious injuries.

## Issues

1. Whether the occupier of premises owed a duty to keep the sloping runway reasonably safe for a mail carrier who regularly used it to deliver mail.
2. Whether Paubel’s long-term knowledge and continued use of an open and recurring slippery condition barred recovery under assumption of risk and/or contributory negligence as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Missouri Supreme Court reversed the judgment for Paubel.
- The court held Hitz was not liable because the complained-of condition was open, obvious, recurrent, and fully known to Paubel.
- The court concluded Paubel voluntarily encountered the known danger and therefore assumed the risk, barring recovery.
- The case was remanded with directions consistent with the reversal, effectively denying recovery on the negligence claim.

## Legal Principles

- An occupier must exercise ordinary care to maintain reasonably safe premises for lawful entrants, but is not an insurer of their safety.
- No actionable breach is shown where the hazard is open and obvious and the injured person has actual knowledge and appreciation of the danger.
- Assumption of risk bars recovery when a plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily continues to encounter a dangerous condition that is fully understood.
- A lawful entrant such as a mail carrier may be owed a duty of reasonable care, but that duty does not extend to protecting against persistent conditions equally known to the entrant.

## Conclusion

The court set aside a jury verdict for an injured mail carrier, reasoning that an open, recurrent, and fully known slippery condition on the defendant’s access runway did not support liability and, in any event, the plaintiff’s voluntary continued use of the runway constituted assumption of risk that barred recovery.


Paubel v. Hitz, 96 S.W.2d 369 (Mo. 1936)