Headley v. Hammond Bldg‪.‬

Personal Injuries ? Cities and Towns ? Defective Sidewalks ? Duty of City ? Owner Placing Device on Sidewalk for Own Benefit ? Inapplicability of Rule of Liability ? Directed Verdict for Defendant, When Proper ? Appeal and Error. Appeal and Error ? Directed Verdict for Defendant ? Evidence to be Viewed in Light Most Favorable to Plaintiff. 1. On appeal from a judgment entered pursuant to a directed verdict in favor of defendant (or on non-suit) the testimony must be viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff. Cities and Towns ? Sidewalks Part of Streets. 2. A sidewalk is but a part of the abutting street, the fee to which is in the state, the city being but a trustee thereof. - Page 244 Same ? Defective Sidewalks ? Duty of Cities. 3. Cities have the same control over, and duties with reference to, sidewalks as they have respecting any other part of the streets, one of their primary duties being to keep its streets, including the sidewalks, in a reasonably safe condition for travel. Same ? Ordinance Requiring Property Owner to Keep Sidewalk in Repair ? Effect of Ordinance as to Duty of City. 4. Where a city by ordinance requires the property owner to keep the sidewalk abutting his premises in repair, the citys duty to the public in that behalf (see par. 3) is not affected, it thereby merely making the owner a joint agent with its officials in the performance of such duty. Same ? Personal Injuries ? Owner Placing Device in Sidewalk for Own Benefit ? When Rule Making Owner Liable for Injuries not Applicable. 5. The rule that where an owner of city property places a device in the abutting sidewalk such as a coal-hole, cellar door, etc., for his own use and benefit and entirely foreign to its use as a walk and fails to keep it in repair, he must respond in damages for injuries resulting therefrom, has no application in a case where in the course of a fire the concrete sidewalk fronting the property and containing areaways and prismatic glass was so damaged that the owner was directed by the city council to construct a temporary plank walk adjacent to a fence excluding the public from the damaged portion, and plaintiff, tripping over bent metal cleats caused to be nailed across the planks where they joined, fell and was injured. Same ? Reason for Rule Making Owner Placing Obstruction in Sidewalk Liable in Damages for Injuries. 6. An abutting owner who places an obstruction in the street (or sidewalk) is liable in damages for resulting injuries, not for the reason that he is the abutting owner but because he is the agency which places the obstruction thereon. Same ? Owner not Required to Keep Sidewalk in Repair After Once Repairing It. 7. The fact that an owner of city property did once repair a defect in the abutting sidewalk did not result in imposing upon him the duty to keep it in repair thereafter. Same ? Conditions Under Which Owner Properly Held not Liable for Injuries on Account of Defect in Sidewalk. 8. In the absence of evidence that when the owner of the property referred to in paragraph 5, supra, attached the metal cleats to the temporary plank walk, a dangerous condition was thereby created at once, it appearing on the contrary that such condition arose only after use by the traveling public, he could not be held liable for injuries sustained, and, not being in duty bound to keep the walk in a good state of repair, the court properly directed a verdict in his favor. - Page 245