10 Colo. App. 327 | Colo. Ct. App. | 1897
delivered the opinion of the court.
This action was brought by the plaintiff in error against the defendant in error to recover damages for injuries which she sustained from a fall while passing over a sloping section of sidewalk, upon which there was an accumulation of snow and ice.
It appears from the evidence that upon Main street, a traveled thoroughfare of the city, there was a section of sidewalk about six feet in length, which sloped or pitched so that the upper portion was about eighteen inches higher than the lower; tha-t on the 11th day of December, 1891, when the accident occurred, it was partially if not wholly covered with ice; and that the plaintiff, while walking over the incline, slipped upon the ice, and fell, sustaining severe injuries, which confined her to her bed for a long period, necessitating a large outlay for surgical and medical treatment, and the effects of which are permanent.
The walk was constructed, or rather reconstructed, in 1887 or 1888 under the supervision of Mr. Pierson, the street commissioner. Before that time the descent was accomplished by means of steps. The walk, as reconstructed, consisted of smooth plank. There were no cleats or strips across it, or so far as appears, any other safeguard against the danger incident to the abruptness of the slope. Mr. Wall, a civil engineer, who was acquainted with the street and incline at the time of, and before the accident, testified that the street then was, and for at least six months previously had been, approximately level. Mr. Pierson testified that when he repaired the street and sidewalk in 1887 or 1888, the grade of the street to the east of the incline was higher, and of the sidewalk lower, than to the west of the incline. This statement, taken in connection with the other testimony
Regarding the duty of the city in respect to the construction and maintenance of its sidewalks, and upon the question whether this sidewalk was so constructed, or so maintained, as to be unnecessarily dangerous in climatic conditions which the defendant ought to have anticipated, we are unable to say that the instructions are objectionable. But, together with the question of the negligence of the city, the court submitted the question whether the plaintiff was guilty of contributory
Instructions must be based on evidence. A correct decla/ration of the law is erroneous when there is no evidence to
The judgment must be reversed.
Reversed.