192 Mo. App. 574 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1916
Lead Opinion
Plaintiff sued for damages she alleges she sustained from negligence of defendant in permitting ice, which had become a dangerous obstruction to travel, to remain upon a public sidewalk. The defense is a general denial and contributory negligence. Verdict and judgment were for plaintiff and defendant appealed.
In the morning of March 2, 1912, plaintiff, while going to work at a laundry where she was employed, slipped and fell upon an icy sidewalk and was severely injured. The sidewalk was on the east side of Prospect avenue between Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets and adjoined the laundry which was at the southeast corner of Fifteenth street and Prospect avenue. Plaintiff, who lived on the west side of Prospect avenue south of Sixteenth street, had crossed to the east side and was walking north in a narrow path worn by pedestrians through the snow which covered the sidewalk, when she slipped and fell.
The records of the weather bureau at Kansas City show that on February 25th and 26th, ten inches of snow fell which the next day was reduced by melting
The evidence most favorable to plaintiff, which, of course, we must accept as true in our consideration of the demurrer to the evidence, tends to show that the heavy snow which had fallen almost a week before the injury had not been removed from the sidewalk on Prospect avenue adjoining the laundry property and that the pedestrian travel which was heavy had beaten down a pathway about eighteen inches wide and with the aid of alternate freezing and thawing the path had been converted into ice which, at places, had formed into ridges and mounds which made the surface extremely ragged, uneven and dangerous. This condition, which had continued three or four days, is described by plaintiff and her witnesses as one which presented a far more difficult and dangerous obstruction to travel than that which is spoken of in some of the reported cases as a general condition of snow and ice which ordinarily would result from not removing fallen snow from the sidewalks.
A city is not liable to respond in damages for injuries resulting from such general conditions. The law, as declared in the decisions in this State, does not impose the duty upon the city of keeping the public sidewalks clear of snow and ice, deeming that such a rule would be impracticable or, at any rate, too burdensome. [Vonkey v. St. Louis, 219 Mo. 37; Livingston v. St. Joseph, 174 Mo. App. 636; Reedy v. Brew
The evidence pf plaintiff brings the obstruction within the class of actionable defects and since it abundantly supports an inference that the defect had existed long enough for defendant in the exercise of reasonable care to have discovered and removed it, and the further inference that plaintiff was walking with reasonable care, we must hold that no error was committed in the refusal pf defendant’s request for a peremptory instruction.
But the judgment must be reversed and the cause remanded because of prejudicial error in the first instruction given at the request of plaintiff. In the first place, the duty of the city is not, as stated in the instruction, “to keep its sidewalks in a reasonably safe condition for travel,” but to exercise reasonable care to keep them in such condition. This error must be deemed prejudicial, since it was a serious question
A more serious error is that the hypothesis upon which a recovery by plaintiff is authorized is so broad that it includes not only actionable but non-actionable defects. Snow allowed to remain on public sidewalks invariably, when subjected to alternate processes of thawing and freezing, becomes more or less rough, uneven and slippery and, of course, more or less dangerous. That, we have pointed out, is a natural and general condition for which the city cannot be held responsible and the instruction in allowing a recovery for such condition enlarged the scope of defendant’s liability beyond its proper limits.
We find no other prejudicial error in the record but for that noted the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
Rehearing
ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
Although an instruction in the case of Reno v. City, 169 Mo. 642, defined the duty of the city in substantially the same language as that employed in the instruction under consideration the accuracy of that definition was not discussed and so far as the opinion discloses was not questioned by the appellant. As compared with sidewalks which are free from snow and ice, icy sidewalks present risks and dangers which render them unsafe and call for the exercise of great care by the pedestrian in using them. To tell the jury in a case such as the present that without qualification “it was the duty of the city to keep its sidewalks in a reasonably safe condition” is to say, in substance, and effect that the city, in the
But whether it does or not the more recent decision of the Supreme Court in Vonkey v. St. Louis, does and we think clearly holds that unevenness and roughness produced by travel through snow and slush which afterwards freezes and presents no obstructive or dangerous features which are not common to the general condition of snow and ice are not to be classed as actionable defects. The premise in the instruction under consideration that “such snow was permitted to remain on the sidewalks and by melting and freezing had become rough and uneven . . . and the said sidewalk by reason of said snow and ice had become and was in an unsafe condition,” etc., is a description of a general instead of a special local condition is, therefore, vitally different from the hypothesis submitted to the instructions in the Reno case and is opposed to the doctrine of the Vonkey case.
It is true, as suggested by counsel for plaintiff that a plaintiff is not required to put his evidence in his instructions, but he is bound when he undertakes to state the hypothesis on which he is entitled to recover to state it correctly, within the limits of the
The motion for rehearing is overruled.
