Carl v. City of New Haven
| Decision Date | 16 July 1919 |
| Citation | 107 A. 502,93 Conn. 622 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | CARL v. CITY OF NEW HAVEN. |
Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Frank D. Haines Judge.
Action by Maude D. Carl against City of New Haven. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Judgment set aside, and new trial ordered.
Action to recover damages for personal injuries from a fall upon an icy sidewalk which the defendant was alleged to have negligently left in a slippery and defective condition. Verdict and judgment for the plaintiff for $1,725.
About 8 o'clock in the evening of February 15, 1917, the plaintiff sustained personal injuries as the result of a fall upon a sidewalk on Winter street, a public highway in New Haven. It was testified and not disputed that the walk at the time and place of the fall was coated with ice, which was itself covered with snow recently fallen. The uncontested evidence was that the walk at this point was upon a lower level than that of the adjacent land outside of the highway that this land, as was the surface of the earth generally was covered with snow which had lain there for a considerable period of time, and that by reason of the formation of the land water formed from melting snow thereon was accustomed to flow down and upon the walk. The testimony of the United States weather observer, uncontradicted, was to the effect that for six days prior to and including the 15th the temperature had been low; that on the 10th to the 13th inclusive, it had at no time risen above 23° above zero; that on the 14th it rose to a maximum of 33° with a minimum of 18° > > ; that on the 15th the maximum was 32° and the minimum 20° ; and that during all that time there was little melting, save in favored spots where there was exposure to the sun's rays. He further testified without contradiction that a little snow fell during the night of the 13th, and that another snowfall commenced at 6:05 in the evening of the 15th and continued until 10:25 o'clock. The city offered testimony by the mouth of several witnesses that on the 15th there was neither ice nor snow upon the walk at the place of accident until well along in the afternoon at least, but that there was, during the middle of the day, water from the melting of snow on the adjacent private property trickling down upon and across the walk. Among the witnesses so testifying was a police officer of the city who, in the performance of his duties, passed over the walk about two o'clock in the afternoon of that day. This testimony concerning the condition of the walk in the afternoon of the 15th was contradicted by witnesses for the plaintiff, who testified that for several days immediately preceding the plaintiff's fall there was upon the walk ice, variously described but substantial in quantity.
The notice actual or implied, of a highway defect causing injuries which a municipality must receive as a condition precedent of liability for those injuries is notice of the defect itself which occasioned the injury, and not merely of conditions naturally productive of that defect, and subsequently in fact producing it.
William L. Bennett and Thomas R. Robinson, both of New Haven, for appellant.
Carl A. Mears and Bertram Weil, both of New Haven, for appellee.
The reasons of appeal select for criticism and complaint four passages contained in the court's charge to the jury. The burden of the complaint made in each instance save one is essentially the same, to wit, that the standard of duty imposed upon the city under circumstances like those presented by the evidence was too high.
It has long been recognized in this state, as elsewhere, that some duty rested upon cities and towns in respect to snow and ice upon highways. The courts of different states have, however, not been in full accord as to the extent and measure of it. Since the illuminating opinion in Cloughessey v. Waterbury, 51 Conn. 405, 50 Am.Rep. 38, following Congdon v. Norwich and Landoldt v. Norwich, both in 37 Conn. at pages 414 and 615, respectively, little uncertainty has remained as to the rule of duty in this state. That rule is one which recognizes on the one hand the demands of public convenience and safety and on the other the difficulties, both financial and physical, which our climatic conditions present, and represents a fair and practicable compromise between a very restricted duty under any and all conditions and a more comprehensive duty clearly defined and arbitrary in its application under all conditions and circumstances.
The cases to which we have alluded and others subsequent thereto make it clear, first of all, that our municipalities, as regards conditions produced by fallen snow or formed ice upon streets and walks, are under no obligation to make them absolutely safe, and much less to make them safe under all circumstances. What the law requires of them, and all that it requires, is the exercise...
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Baker v. Ives
...28 A.2d 10; Jainchill v. Schwartz, 116 Conn. 522, 525, 165 A. 689; Aaronson v. New Haven, 94 Conn. 690, 696, 110 A. 872; Carl v. New Haven, 93 Conn. 622, 628, 107 A. 502. In the case at bar, no claim was made, nor was evidence produced, to show that the defendant had actual notice of the ic......
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...test of reasonableness similarly applied.' " Bazinet v. Hartford, 135 Conn. 484, 487, 66 A.2d 117 (1949), quoting Carl v. New Haven, 93 Conn. 622, 626, 107 A. 502 (1919); see Baker v. Ives, supra. The duty of "reasonable care" to be applied in § 13a-144 cases in determining the conduct of t......
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Graham v. Comm'r of Transp.
...[Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.] ), cert. denied, 293 Conn. 937, 981 A.2d 1079 (2009).In Carl v. New Haven , 93 Conn. 622, 625, 107 A. 502 (1919), our Supreme Court held that, under the municipal defective highway statute, now § 13a–149, "our municipalities, [with regar......
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Nicefaro v. City of New Haven
...or of the existence of a cause likely to produce the defect, is not sufficient." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Carl v. New Haven, 93 Conn. 622, 628, 107 A. 502 (1919). Similarly, "the predictability of a future defect does not provide the requisite notice to establish municipal liabil......