Henkes v. City of Minneapolis

• Decision Date: 14 February 1890
• Citation: 44 N.W. 1026,42 Minn. 530
• Parties: Nicholas Henkes v. City of Minneapolis
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

44 N.W. 1026

42 Minn. 530

Nicholas Henkes v. City of Minneapolis

Supreme Court of Minnesota

February 14, 1890

Action brought in the district court for Hennepin county, to recover $ 5,000 for personal injuries resulting from a fall on an icy sidewalk. Trial before Hooker, J., who ordered a dismissal at the close of the evidence for plaintiff, who appeals from an order refusing a new trial.

Order affirmed.

Penney & Rogers, for appellant.

Robert D. Russell, for respondent.

OPINION

Mitchell, J.

The trial court was clearly right in dismissing the case on the ground that plaintiff had failed to establish a cause of action. The sum of all the evidence is that it was and for some time had been cold winter weather, and all the sidewalks in the city were covered with ice to a certain extent, so that "if a man didn't take care, he was liable to slip and fall almost any place." About a week previous to the accident there had been a fire in the building abutting on the sidewalk where plaintiff sustained the injury, during which some water escaped from the hose, and ran upon the sidewalk which was then covered with a coating of snow, which soon after froze, and remained in that condition, without any thaw, until the time of the accident. The result was that the ice was a little thicker on this part of the side walk than elsewhere, and also a little rougher because of the foot-prints of people who stepped in the wet snow at the time of the fire. But this extra thickness of ice was very small, and the roughness comparatively slight. As one witness put it, "there was no particular bad deep places, or big high ridges to amount to anything; there was no place you could stub your toe." Another witness said the best explanation he could give of the roughness spoken of was "if there was a coating of snow on this floor, and you were to step on it, it would make a dent in it; it was something like that. Of course, stepping into it, all water and letting it freeze, it wouldn't remain as thick a dent as that." The witnesses describe the thickness of the ice as from two to two and a half inches. It is evident that neither the thickness of the ice nor the roughness spoken of was such as to form an obstruction to travel, or to render this part of the walk appreciably less safe than any other sidewalk. Neither was it any more slippery. Hence we can see no reason why it was any more the duty to remove this ice than it was to remove it from any other sidewalk. Appellant seems to argue that the fact that this ice was in part the result of an artificial cause, and not wholly of natural causes, such as the fall of rain or snow, makes a difference. But no such a distinction can be maintained. The liability of the city must rest upon some ground of fault or neglect on part of its officers who have charge of the streets, and such fault or neglect is no more involved in removing ice formed by water from hose than ice formed by rain from the clouds. Nason v. City of Boston, 14 Allen 508. ...