Brosz v. City of Danbury
| Decision Date | 04 August 1953 |
| Citation | 99 A.2d 136,140 Conn. 279 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | BROSZ v. CITY OF DANBURY. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut |
Paul C. Jamieson, Bridgeport, with whom, on the brief, was Rocco E. LaCava, Danbury, for appellant (defendant).
Samuel Reich, Bridgeport, with whom were H. LeRoy Jackson, Danbury, and, on the brief, Ronald M. Stark, Milford, for appellee (plaintiff).
Before BROWN, C. J., and BALDWIN, INGLIS, O'SULLIVAN and CORNELL, JJ.
O'SULLIVAN, Associate Justice.
The plaintiff brought this action to recover damages for bodily injuries sustained in falling upon an icy sidewalk in the city of Danbury. The court rendered judgment in her favor and the defendant has appealed.
The finding is not subject to material correction. It recites the following facts: On February 13, 1948, the plaintiff, a woman sixty-five years old, was living in a house located at the southeasterly corner of the intersection of James Street and Homestead Avenue, two public highways under the control of the defendant city. This locality was within a thickly populated residential section. About 3:30 p.m. on the date mentioned, the plaintiff left her home and walked northerly across James Street. She was wearing rubbers and was carrying a dipper full of sand which she scattered ahead as she walked along. Upon reaching the opposite sidewalk, she turned to her right and, while proceeding slowly on it, slipped and fell. As a result of this mishap, she fractured her hip.
At the point of her fall, the entire width of the sidewalk was covered with an accumulation of several inches of frozen snow and ice upon which no abrasive substance had been strewn. The walk had been in substantially the same condition for at least two weeks. It was the policy of the defendant not to sand any sidewalk unless a complaint was received about it. The task of caring for the sidewalks in front of their premises was left to the property owners. For this purpose, the defendant maintained about 200 boxes of sand at various places along the 85 miles of sidewalks within its supervision and control. The sand often froze and, when this occurred, was hard to get out of the boxes. A precipitation of rain and sleet late in the forenoon of February 13 turned entirely to rain shortly after noontime. During the morning the temperature was at or below freezing but it rose above that point in the afternoon. The court concluded that the plaintiff's fall and her resulting injuries were the direct and proximate result of the defendant's failure to render the sidewalk reasonably safe for public travel.
The first of the two claims raised by the defendant on this appeal is that the court could not reasonably have found that the plaintiff was in the exercise of reasonable care. The point which the defendant urges is that, because of the dangerous conditions prevailing outside, the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in venturing out of her home at all. It may be that danger can be so imminent and great that reasonable care necessarily requires a person to remain indoors but the case at bar is hardly of that nature. The court was confronted with the question whether the degree of care exercised by the plaintiff was proportionate to the existing danger of which she was aware or should have been aware through the reasonable use of her faculties. Blake v. City of Waterbury, 105 Conn. 482, 484, 136 A. 95. If she knew of the dangerous condition of the sidewalk but used reasonable care in passing over it, she would not be chargeable with contributory negligence. Congdon v. Norwich, 37 Conn. 414, 420. Under the finding in this case, the question of the plaintiff's freedom from such negligence was one of fact. Since reasoning minds might differ on the matter, we cannot disturb the court's conclusion upon it. Sheehan v. Sette, 130 Conn. 295, 297, 33 A.2d 327; Gipstein v. Kirshenbaum, 120 Conn. 697, 699, 181 A. 463.
The only other claim advanced by the defendant is that the court could not reasonably have concluded that 'the cause of the plaintiff's...
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