As to the absence of a handrail, the jurors knew, as well as we do, from common knowledge that where a space of only eighteen inches is to be ascended by means of an intervening step or steps it is not customary or required in the exercise of reasonable care that a handrail be provided. It is true that a handrail may have afforded the plaintiff a means of regaining her equilibrium when she accidentlly caught her shoe heel and started to fall. It is likewise true that if a fellow employee had been stationed there to catch her she would have avoided the injury, but we are dealing here with an alleged failure to exercise reasonable care to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition, that is to say, such care as would be reasonably expected of ordinarily prudent employers in like circumstances.
The remaining ground of complaint is that the corridor leading to the rest room was dimly lighted. The facts stated in the majority opinion, however, show that it was reasonably well lighted for the purpose for which it was intended to be used; as much so as common experience and observation would show in regard to a passage to any out of the way place for the use of employees when it is disconnected from the main office or place of business in which the duties of an employment are performed. To hold that the corridor was required to be better lighted on that June day during the daylight hours, is to announce a principle whereby we should next be expected to hold that railroad companies, industrial and manufacturing plants, furnishing outdoor toilets for the use of their employees must keep the passageway to the same properly lighted, at least in the nighttime, if any employee is on duty about the premises.
This Court has repeatedly held that the duty to furnish a safe place to work is not absolute, but that it is only required that the employer exercise reasonable care to do so. Hooks v. Mills,101 Miss. 91, 57 So. 545; Vehicle *Page 617 Woodstock Co. v. Bowles, 158 Miss. 346, 128 So. 98; Gulfport Creosoting Co. v. White, 171 Miss. 127, 157 So. 86, also holding that such duty is not that of an insurer; Columbus G.R. Co. v. Coleman, 172 Miss. 514, 160 So. 277; Wilson Co., Inc. v. Holmes, 180 Miss. 361, 177 So. 24. Moreover, there can be no liability for the doing of an act or the failure to perform a duty in a particular manner unless the person charged therewith should have reasonably anticipated that some injury to another would as a reasonable probability result therefrom. Williams v. Lumpkin, 169 Miss. 146, 152 So. 842; Wilson Co., Inc., v. Holmes, supra. A mere possibility that an injury might result from a given situation is not sufficient under any of our decisions to create liability. Nor do we have a Workmen's Compensation Law in this state for awarding damages to an injured employee without proof of some act of negligence on the part of the employer. Neither the juries nor the courts are authorized to apply the principle of that legislation in the absence of an enactment of the legislature in that behalf, even though an employee has accidentally sustained an injury while engaged in the service of the employer.
I think that the peremptory instruction should have been given as requested, but that in no event should an issue as to whether the steps were properly constructed have been submitted to the jury. As to whether certain facts are sufficient to constitute actionable negligence under the law is, and always has been, for the decision of the Court; it is the province of the jury only to decide what the facts are when there is conflict in the evidence in regard thereto. We should, in my opinion, therefore determine here as a matter of law, as was true in the trial court, that there is no basis for the submission to the jury of any question of negligence on the condition of the steps. They were not required to be the best, nor to comply with any particular standard measurements. Columbus G.R. Co. v. Coleman, 172 Miss. 514,160 So. 277, and the case therein cited of Vehicle Woodstock Co. *Page 618 v. Bowles, 158 Miss. 346, 128 So. 98. Only an expert would be presumed to know what the standard dimensions are as to width of the tread, and from time immemorial both men and women have been falling down steps, whether of standard make or not. The law only requires that reasonable care be exercised to the end that they be reasonably safe.
From common knowledge and experience I know that when I shall descend from one of the landings on the front steps of the Capitol building this afternoon at nightfall, it will be necessary to encounter at least one step with a tread as narrow as the one here involved, located immediately above others of greater width; and I shall do so with an abiding faith that the state has exercised reasonable care for the safety of its officers and employees as well as that of the general public. The law should not, and in my opinion does not, require greater care to be exercised by its citizens.