10 Pa. Super. 283 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1899
Opinion by
The plaintiff received injuries by falling on a sidewalk in the defendant borough, and on the trial of the cause in the court below, she describes the accident as follows: “ I was walking along and was looking out for the step, and I stepped off, and as I stepped down I fell by some reason or other, I don’t know just how it did happen I fell so quick and I lay there and couldn’t get up.” The borough authorities had established a uniform grade for one of its principal streets and its sidewalks,' and in conformity with this grade a property owner put down a concrete pavement, which was about twelve inches higher than the old grade of the adjoining pavement. To remedy this abrupt break in the sidewalk, the street committee and sidewalk committee of the council with their engineer had a conference on the ground, and after mature deliberation, concluded that the most efficient method to assure the safety of persons using the sidewalk would be a construct a step at the end of the concrete pavement. In accordance with this plan the defendant placed a heavy hemlock plank twelve inches in width midway between the pavement levels so as to make two steps with a rise of between five and six inches each, the length being the width of the pavement.
From the time the step was placed in the pavement in June until the plaintiff received her injuries in the following November, she had passed over the sidewalk frequently, and was familiar with the location of the step and of its construction.
Moreover her own evidence fails to disclose the cause of the accident. The most friendly interpretation of it suggests no more than a conjecture that she may have fallen down over the step, or, from the pavement into the street, but there is fully as much warrant for the inference that she slipped on some object lying on the pavement. At most, whatever conclusion is reached as to the cause of the accident it is based upon a presumption unsupported by proven facts which are exclusively applicable to it. Her own knowledge of the accident is so uncertain as to justify her only in saying “ I don’t know how it did happen, I fell so quick,” and a jury should not be permitted to supply the additional facts and inferences to be drawn from them. The fifth assignment of error is sustained and the judgment is reversed.