Beltz v. City of Yonkers
| Citation | 148 N.Y. 67,42 N.E. 401 |
| Parties | BELTZ v. CITY OF YONKERS. |
| Decision Date | 19 December 1895 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals |
Appeal from supreme court, general term, Second department.
Action by Christine Beltz against the city of Yonkers. From a judgment of the general term (26 N. Y. Supp. 106) affirming a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.
James M. Hunt, for appellant.
John F. Brennan, for respondent.
The plaintiff has recovered a judgment against the defendant for the damages which she sustained in consequence of an accident in one of the streets of the city on the 10th of February, 1893. On the morning of that day the plaintiff, while walking along Broadway, one of the principal streets of the city, fell and broke her leg. Whether this accident was in any degree the result of any fault on her part was a question which was properly submitted to the jury, and the verdict is conclusive against the defendant on that brance of the case. The sole question involved is whether the evidencewas of such a character as to warrant a finding by the jury of negligence on the part of the defendant. There is little, if any, conflict in the evidence on this point. The plaintiff was walking upon a sidewalk of stone flagging, 8 feet in width, constructed of two courses of fiags 4 feet wide. At the point in this walk where the accident occurred, and at the joint where two of the flags were united, the edges of the stone were broken off, and the broken parts removed. This left an uncovered depression in the center of the walk, of the same depth as the thickness of the flags, which was about 2 1/2 inches. The surface area of this depression was about 2 feet and 2 inches in length by 7 1/2 inches in width. This depression being in the center, there was, of course, an ample width of flagging on either side. So far as this depression extended, the surface of the walk was the earth in which the flags had been imbedded, and it appears that in time of rains water would occasionally accumulate in the center of the place. It had existed in this way for four years. In describing the defect in the walk I have adopted the testimony of the plaintiff, which is in some slight particulars the most favorable to her, and upon which, it must be presumed, the jury based the verdict. The walk, in this condition, had been used by the public for years, and it appears that no accident had resulted from such use before.
The question is thus presented whether these facts are sufficient to charge the defendant with the results of the accident on the ground of negligence. All we know with respect to the manner in which it occurred is what the plaintiff herself states,-that she was walking along on the morning in question, holding an umbrella over her head; that she stepped into the depression and fell upon the walk, with the result already described. It is scarcely necessary to repeat here, what has often been said before, that a city is not responsible for every accident that may happen in its streets resulting in personal injuries. With the greatest vigilance and the utmost foresight, there will still be accidents for which no one, in any legal sense, is to blame. In many such cases, however, when an accident does happen, the human mind can see and suggest many ways by which it could have been avoided. In this case the jury had the right to assume that the authorities of the city, whose duty it was to keep the streets in repair, either knew or should have...
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Taylor v. Kansas City
... ... v. Shreveport, 134 La. 820, 64 So. 762; Brown v. New ... Orleans, 7 La. App. 611; Knoxville v. Hood, 97 ... S.W.2d 446; Beltz v. Yonkers, 148 N.Y. 67, 42 N.E ... 401; Griffin v. Town of Harrison, 268 N.Y. 238, 197 ... N.E. 265; Lalor v. New York, 208 N.Y. 431, 102 ... ...
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Hutchinson v. Sheridan Hill House Corp.
...any danger from its existence,” and yet an accident occurs that is traceable to the defect, there is no liability (Beltz v. City of Yonkers,148 N.Y. 67, 70, 42 N.E. 401 [1895]). This principle is equally applicable to private landlords and municipalities. Moreover, the trivial defect doctri......
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Hutchinson v. Sheridan Hill House Corp.
...any danger from its existence,” and yet an accident occurs that is traceable to the defect, there is no liability (Beltz v. City of Yonkers, 148 N.Y. 67, 70, 42 N.E. 401 [1895] ). This principle is equally applicable to private landlords and municipalities. Moreover, the trivial defect doct......
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Pearson v. Boise City
...in holding that a 1 1/2 inch sidewalk depression did not constitute actionable negligence, quoted with approval from Beltz v. City of Yonkers, 148 N.Y. 67, 42 N.E. 401, 402, as 'If the existence of such a defect is to be deemed evidence of negligence on the part of the city, then there is s......