Buck v. City of Danville

• Decision Date: 09 June 1941
• Docket Number: Record No. 2377.
• Citation: 177 Va. 582
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: CLARENCE J. BUCK v. CITY OF DANVILLE.

Page 582

177 Va. 582

CLARENCE J. BUCK v.CITY OF DANVILLE.

Record No. 2377.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

June 9, 1941.

Present, Campbell, C.J., and Holt, Gregory, Browning and Spratley, JJ.

1.STREETS AND HIGHWAYS — Duties and Liabilities of Municipal Corporations — Not an Insurer.— A city is not an insurer as to the condition of its sidewalks.

2.STREETS AND HIGHWAYS — Duties and Liabilities of Municipal Corporations — Reasonable Care Required.— A city must exercise reasonable care and do those things which are reasonably necessary to make sidewalks safe for pedestrians.

3.STREETS AND HIGHWAYS — Duties and Liabilities of Municipal Corporations — Each Case Determined on Its Particular Facts.— In determining the liability of a city for failure to keep its sidewalks in repair, the court must look to the particular facts in each particular case.

4.STREETS AND HIGHWAYS — Actions for Injuries — Questions of Law and Fact — Negligence of City — Case at Bar.— The instant case was an action for injuries received when plaintiff fell because of an alleged defect in the sidewalk of defendant city.Witnesses testified that there was a space between the blocks in the sidewalk and that one block was on edge over another, and one witness testified that she had seen other people stumble over the block and that the situation had continued for more than two years.A verdict for plaintiff was set aside and final judgment for defendant entered.

Held: That the question was one for the jury and the verdict should be reinstated, since the jury might well have believed that the city was negligent in permitting what was in substance a trap to remain unrepaired for more than two years.

5.STREETS AND HIGHWAYS — Duties and Liabilities of Municipal Corporations — Must Maintain Sidewalks.— A city is charged with the duty of maintaining its sidewalks.

6.STREETS AND HIGHWAYS — Duties and Liabilities of Municipal Corporations — Sufficiency of Notice of Defects — Case at Bar.— The instant case was an action for injuries received when plaintiff fell because of an alleged defect in the sidewalk of defendant city.Witnesses testified that there was a space between the blocks in the sidewalk and that one block was on edge over another, and one witness testified that she had seen other people stumble over the block and that the situation had continued for more than two years.A verdict for plaintiff was set aside and final judgment for defendant entered.The accident occurred on a busy street and there was in substance no inspection, although a city official did at times ride down the street in a truck and look at the sidewalk.

Held: That if the unsafe condition was not known to the city, it should have been known.

Error to a judgment of the Corporation Court of the city of Danville.Hon. Henry C. Leigh, judge presiding.

The opinion states the case.

Aiken and Sanford & Johnson, for the plaintiff in error.

E. Walton Brown, for the defendant in error.

HOLT, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

On September 26, 1939, in the afternoon somewhere between 5:30 and 5:50, Clarence J. Buck fell and was hurt on a Floyd street sidewalk in the city of Danville.Night had not set in but it was dusky.He sought to recover damages from the city and in his motion for judgment charged that it was negligent.A jury gave him a verdict of $500.00.That verdict the court set aside and entered final judgment for the defendant.This, it was charged, was error and is the only error assigned.

The sidewalk on Floyd street is paved with concrete blocks about two feet square and two inches thick, set to form a diamond pattern.To fill out the pattern some were cut in half and were placed with base towards the property line, with angle or apex towards the street.Earth was leveled off and covered with two inches of sand, and on this for a base these concrete blocks were laid.This work was done twenty or twenty-five years ago.It was on or over one of these half sections that plaintiff fell.

From the evidence a jury might have believed that its base had been hollowed out, possibly by water from a nearby roof.Mrs. Lily M. Goodman said:

"There was a space between it (these blocks), but the way the rock was laying, just the edge of it — the middle corner — just the edge of it was on the other one, and when he stepped on it, it give with him."

Edwin Goodman gives this...