delivered the opinion of the court:
The question for decision is whether a city which builds and maintains safety islands to protect those waiting for or alighting from street cars from injury by passing vehicles, is under a greater duty to remove snow and ice from such safety islands than from its sidewalks. The Appellate Court for the First District affirmed a judgment of $5000 for personal injuries allegedly caused by the failure of the city to remove snow and ice from one of its safеty islands. We granted leave to appeal.
The material facts are not in dispute. The accident from which the suit arose оccurred on the afternoon of January 8, 1936, on Western avenue, in Chicago, just north of its intersection with Cornelia avenue. At this place a safety-island or concrete platform is located for the convenience of persons waiting for, boarding or lеaving street cars. Plaintiff, a student at Lane Technical high school, went to the safety island in question to board a southbound Western avеnue street car. The safety island there is approximately 100 feet long, about 4 feet wide and is about 4 inches above the streеt level. On its east side are located street car tracks, while vehicular traffic passes on the west. On January 6, snow to the depth of four inches was recorded in Chicago and by January 8 its depth had increased to 4.1 inches. The entire surface of the safety islаnd was covered with ice and snow at a depth of from one to four inches and was very lumpy or irregular, due to many footprints. On the еastern edge of the safety platform there was a slope of solid ice from the middle of the island down to the west rail of the south-bound car tracks. At the time of the accident some twenty-five or more passengers were there waiting to board a street сar. Before the car came to a stop the students and others waiting on the safety island started moving toward its rear entrancе and it was then that plaintiff slipped under the car and sustained injuries which required the amputation of the middle toes of his left foot. The only conflict in the evidence is as to the depth of the ice and snow and its degree of roughness. It appears that this surface roughness had existed for a period of forty-eight hours prior to the accident.
In a comparatively recent decision, Grahаm v. City of Chicago,
In reviewing the judgment of the trial court, the Appellate Court, largely upоn quotations and citations of authority from other Appellate Court opinions rendered prior to our decision in Graham v. City of Chiсago, supra, held the city to a higher degree of responsibility in keeping safety islands free from snow and ice than existed with reference to its streets and sidewalks. Its opinion sustained the judgment against the city by distinguishing it from the Graham case with a holding that the facts as to safеty islands lacked “the generality of a situation resulting from natural causes.” With this view we cannot agree. The snow and ice on the safety island in question accumulated as a result of natural causes and the condition was undoubtedly a general one throughout the city on the day of the injury. Snow when trampled upon by many pedestrians and when subjected to alternate thawing into slush and freezing forms itself, when frozen hard, into irregular mounds which become slippery and difficult at times to walk upon. This condition is general during wintertime throughout Illinois. As held by us in the Grahаm case, this prevalent condition produces the reason of necessity which underlies the rule exempting cities in this latitude from liability for injuries on city streets and sidewalks, when the presence of snow and ice is the result of natural causes. The safety island is, in effeсt, only a cement sidewalk raised above the street level for the use and protection of pedestrians. The view that a greater duty should be imposed upon the city of Chicago to clean snow and ice from its many safety islands than it owes with reference to its sidewalks finds no support in any of the cases called to our attention and is contrary to the reasoning of the Graham cаse. No artificial condition, as in the Graham case, caused the irregular formation of slippery ice and snow on the safеty island. On the contrary, the same general weather conditions affected the sidewalks of Chicago and the safety island in the same manner. This condition resulted from natural causes beyond the power of the city to prevent or control and required pedеstrians, when using safety islands, placed by the city for their protection and convenience, to exercise the same degreе of care for their own safety as they would use on the streets and sidewalks under like conditions.
Since no particular reason hаs been shown which would justify the application of a special rule to the surface condition found to exist on the safety island in quеstion, and no reason has been presented why our holding in Graham v. City of Chicago, supra, should either be modified or reversed, the judgment оf the Appellate Court cannot be sustained.
The judgménts of the circuit court of Cook county and the Appellate Court for the First District, are reversed.
Judgments reversed.