107 Mo. 92 | Mo. | 1891
This is an appeal from the judgment of the circuit court sustaining a demurrer to plaintiff’s petition. The causé of action set up in the petition is that the plaintiff by the final judgment of the circuit court of the city of St. Louis was compelled to pay one, Mattie C. Norton, the sum of $1,291.18 damages and costs for injuries received by her from a fall in passing over a sidewalk on Locust street in said city in front of defendant’s property, made dangerous and unsafe by an accumulation of snow and ice thereon which the defendant suffered and allowed to remain, in violation of the city ordinances, wherefore the city asks judgment for the amount it was so compelled to pay. The ordinances recited in the petition require the owners to keep the sidewalk and gutters in front of their property clean, and after any fall of snow to cause the snow to be immediately removed from the sidewalk fronting their property into the carriage way of the street, and declare any person failing to comply with this requirement . guilty of a misdemeanor, upon conviction of which such person is to be fined not less than $5 nor more than $20.
Before the judgment against the city in favor of Mrs. Norton became conclusive, the case was reviewed on appeal in this court. Norton v. City of St. Louis, 97 Mo. 537. In that case the city undertook to devolve upon the defendant here primary liability for the injuries Mrs. Norton received by reason of the unsafe and dangerous condition of the sidewalk on'which she fell.
While there is respectable authority for the position that a municipal corporation cannot impose upon the citizen the obligation to keep the public sidewalk in front of his premises free from obstruction by snow, etc., at his own expense (Gridley v. City of Bloomington, 88 Ill. 554; Chicago v. O’Brien, 111 Ill. 532), the weight of authority is, however, the other way, and in favor of the position tentatively stated in the foregoing dicta, as to such power (many of the cases are cited in brief of plaintiff’s counsel). Prom the exercise of this power by the city through its ordinances creating such
The doctrine on this subject is tersely stated in 2 Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, section '343, as follows: “An abutting owner, as such, owes- no duty to maintain the street or sidewalk in front of his premises, and is not 'responsible for any defects therein which are not caused by his own wrongful act. He may, consequently, like any other person using the sidewalk in front of his premises, recover for an injury from a defect therein against the city whose duty it was to keep it in repair. The fact that he violates a city ordinance, which requires abutting owners to remove snow and ice from the sidewalk in front of their premises within a certain time after their accumulation, does not render him liable to one injured by falling upon such snow and ice, nor to the
The demurrer was properly sustained, and the judgment of the circuit court is affirmed.