112 Wis. 211 | Wis. | 1901
Does the complaint state a cause of action ? That is the first question presented for decision. It is contended that this court held in effect, in Rhyner v. Menasha, 107 Wis. 201, that an allegation that a public sidewalk is out of repair and is in a defective, insufficient, and dangerous condition, does not state facts showing that municipal duty as to the safety of the walk for public use has not been performed ; that a pleading or special verdict, in order to show a breach of such duty, should state expressly that the sidewalk was so insufficient as not to be reasonably safe for public travel. We do not so understand that decision. Certainly the law is otherwise. The court there had under consideration a finding that a street was “ defective or in a dangerous condition or out of repair,” and it was said, in effect, that such a finding might be true and the street yet be in a reasonably safe condition for public travel, not insufficient or in want of repair, which is the test to be applied in measuring the duty of a municipality in caring for its streets under sec. 1339, Stats. 1898. The vice in the question was in several things being stated in the disjunctive, when either, or some one of them at least, might exist and the street be all that the statute required it to be. The court did not decide expressly, or by reasonable inference, that it is necessary to allege in terms, in an action of this kind, that the public way involved was not reasonably safe for public
Did the evidence warrant the submission to the jury of the question of whether there was an actionable defect in the sidewalk which caused the injury complained of ? That question was raised on a motion for a nonsuit at the close of plaintiff’s evidence, and by a motion for the direction of a verdict, and again by a motion to set the verdict aside and grant a new trial; and the rulings of the court adversely to appellant were preserved for consideration on this appeal. The question is divisible. It involves, first, whether the evidence was sufficient to raise the question of whether the sidewalk was reasonably safe for public use at the time of the accident; second, if such insufficiency existed, whether appellant had knowledge, actual or constructive, thereof in time to remedy the defect; and third, whether the insufficiency had in fact existed for the full period of three weeks continuously immediately preceding the accident. The second and third propositions may be considered as one for the purposes of this cause.
Notwithstanding the insufficiency of the walk, the defect was not actionable unless appellant had notice thereof, act
‘ The city shall not be liable for damages caused by any sidewalk being in a defective or dangerous condition or oiit of repair, unless it be shown that, previous to the happening of the same, one of the board of aldermen of the ward in which the same is located had knowledge thereof; and no knowledge of such condition shall be presumed unless the defect out of which the same occurred existed three weeks before such damage occurred: provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to mean that knowledge is to be presumed because such three weeks had elapsed.’ Sec. 97, ch. 32, Laws of 1885.
Sec. 1339, Stats. 1898, as amended by ch. 305, Laws of 1899, goes further, and expressly exempts municipalities from all liability for damages for injuries sustained by reason of an accumulation of snow or ice upon any bridge or highway, unless such accumulation shall have existed for three weeks. In order to appreciate the force of that provision as applied to this case, it must be borne in mind that the word “highway,” as used in sec. 1339, includes streets in cities
We agree with the construction of the city charter of appellant and of the law of 1899 contended for by appellant, that the manifest purposes thereof were to preclude constructive notice of the insufficiency of a street being found against the municipality in the absence of proof of its existence continuously for the period of three weeks immediately preceding the happening of the result complained of, and to take away all liability of the municipality in such cases as this, unless the insufficiency causing the injury existed continuously for three weeks immediately prior to the happening thereof. Notwithstanding some criticisms upon the charge of the circuit judge, made by appellant’s counsel, it is considered that he attempted to instruct the jury fairly in
The only reason seen for saying that fault was committed in the instructions which may have resulted in preventing the jury from answering question Eo. 3 intelligently and finding the fact involved, if there was such failure, lies in a, part of the instructions to which we will refer. The attention of the jury was specially directed to the undisputed evidence that a heavy fall of snow occurred within three-weeks before the accident, which wholly covered up the-ridge of snow or ice in the center of the walk; and they were told that such circumstance required the question to-
Looking at the evidence as favorably as we reasonably can for respondent, the condition which the jury said rendered the walk insufficient was caused by this combination of circumstances: A. substantially level surface of the sidewalk, including the whole region thereof outside a space about twelve inches wide near the center, the level portions covered with hard snow, made slippery by having been walked upon, some roughness here and there, caused by footprints made in the snow in soft weather and the freezing of the snow thereafter, so that a person walking thereon was liable to slip or be momentarily turned aside; a ridge of ice covering twelve inches in the center of the walk, rising gradually, with sloping, rough sides, caused by
It is suggested that the court erred in refusing to submit, at appellant’s request, the following question: “Was the sidewalk at the place and time of the accident in a reasonably safe condition for persons to walk upon while in the exercise of ordinary care ? ” Counsel seem to suppose that question No. 2, submitted by the court, wherein the jury were asked to decide whether, at the time and place of the accident, there was an accumulation of snow on the walk in a rough, uneven, and slippery ridge, so as to render the walk insufficient for public use, did not include the element of whether the walk was reasonably safe for persons to travel upon in the exercise of ordinary care. We have already spoken upon that subject. If the sidewalk was insufficient
Complaint is made because the court refused to submit this question: “Was the injury which plaintiff received the' result of an accident for which neither party was at fault?” Here again we see failure to comprehend the essentials of a special verdict. Such essentials are confined to the material issues made by the pleadings and controverted on the evidence, and no practice is better calculated to defeat the very object of such a verdict than that of submitting questions differing in form, each covering in its entirety a particular issue, or one of the questions so covering an issue, and others covering some element thereof; or submitting a question covering a material controverted issue, with another, as was desired in this case, in such form as to invite inconsistent answers. Such a method of confusing and trapping jurors should be guarded against at every step in executing the special verdict statute. The learned court in this case, by one question, submitted the issue as to whether the walk was, at the time and place of the injury, insufficient or in want of repair; and in the event that such question was answered in the affirmative the jury were asked by another question to decide whether the insufficiency or want of repair was the proximate cause of the injury complained of. The answers to those questions necessarily covered the subject of whether the injury to respondent was the result of a mere accident, and the question requested on
Further complaint is made because the court refused to submit to the jury this question: “Was the sidewalk in question, at the place where plaintiff was injured, in a reasonably safe condition on February 5, 1900?” The question was properly rejected. It was covered by questions 2 and 3. It was in any event but a mere element of the issue as to whether the insufficient condition of the walk, which caused the accident, if it was so caused, existed for three weeks continuously immediately prior thereto.
Many other complaints are made of refusals to submit questions, but what we have said would only need to be repeated in answering them. Such complaints are made, as it seems, unmindful that this court has condemned, over and over again, the doing of the very things-which counsel insist the learned trial court erroneously refused to do. An earnest study of the many decisions of this court in respect to the proper method of taking a special verdict is suggested. The verdict, as framed by the trial court, covered every issue made by the pleadings that was controverted on the evidence.
The circuit judge, in several instances, in the instructions to the jury, spoke of the condition of the walk as if insufficiency thereof for public use, at the time and place of plaintiff’s injury, was established by the evidence, or to be taken that way by the jury, as, for example, this language was used in respect to the question of whether, if the jury found in answer to question No. 2 that the walk at the time and place of the injury was insufficient for public use, such condition had existed for such a length of time that the defendant, in the exercise of ordinary care, ought to have dis
What we have said covers all matters submitted for con■sideration that require special mention in this opinion, ex-cept the course taken by the circuit judge in giving general instructions to the jury. The erroneous, prejudicial practice of
We are not unmindful of the fact that the real legislative purpose of the special verdict statute, that of securing a decision, by the jury in a cause, of each material issue made by the pleadings and controverted on the evidence, separate from any other issue and entirely uninfluenced by any thought as to the final result to be reached by an application of the law to the facts requiring a general finding, ,or any general consideration by the jury at all of the case as a whole, including the law and the facts, and entirely uninfluenced, so far as practicable, by any knowledge of the law in respect to the result of their findings, and that a practice inconsistent therewith is, by reasonable inference, prohibited by the
The judgment must be reversed for error of the court in giving general instructions to the jury in connection with the submission of the case to them for a special verdict, and because the undisputed evidence shows that the insufficient condition of the sidewalk, which the jury found existed at the time of plaintiff’s injury and which was the proximate cause thereof, did not exist continuously for three weeks immediately prior to the accident, so as to satisfy the statutory condition, in that regard, of plaintiff’s right to recover compensation for her injuries. The court should have granted a nonsuit upon appellant’s motion therefor at the close of plaintiff’s evidence. Failing in that, the motion for the direction of a verdict should have been granted, and failing in that the verdict should have been set aside and a new ■ trial granted on appellant’s motion therefor. The third question covering the issue in respect to whether the condition of the sidewalk, found by the jury to have existed at the time of the accident in answer to question No. 2, existed for three weeks continuously immediately prior thereto, should have been answered in the negative. If a motion had been made to correct the answer given by the jury by changing it to the negative in conformity with the undisputed evidence, and the court had ruled adversely to the appellant, this court could reverse the judgment, direct the verdict to be corrected, and a judgment of dismissal, with costs in favor of appellant, to be rendered on the verdict as corrected. Dummer v. Milwaukee E. R. & L. Co. 108 Wis. 589, 593; Wanzer v. Chippewa Valley E. R. Co. 108 Wis.
By the Court.— So ordered.
On January 28,1902, a motion by the respondent for a rehearing was held to have been waived.