City of Covington v. Asman

• Decision Date: 04 June 1902
• Citation: 113 Ky. 608,68 S.W. 646
• Parties: CITY OF COVINGTON v. ASMAN. [1]
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

68 S.W. 646

113 Ky. 608

CITY OF COVINGTON v. ASMAN. ^[1]

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

June 4, 1902

Appeal from circuit court, Kenton county.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Emma Asman against the city of Covington to recover damages for personal injuries. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed.

F. J Hanlon, for appellant.

B. F Graziani, for appellee.

BURNAM J.

The appellee, Emma Asman, brought this suit to recover damages for personal injuries received by her on the 4th of September, 1901, resulting from an alleged defective condition in one of the sidewalks of the city of Covington. It appears from the testimony that the brick pavement in front of the Sisters' School had been replaced by one made of cement, which was about three inches higher than the brick pavement, and at the point where the cement pavement stopped, and the brick began, a small gutter ran from the side yard across the pavement along the edge of the cement pavement to the gutter in the street, and that near the curbing one or two bricks were missing, and two or three were loose, and that appellee stepped into the hole from which the missing brick had been taken, which resulted in a severe sprain of her ankle. A jury trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in her favor for $523, and, a motion for a new trial having been overruled, the city prosecutes this appeal. The main ground relied on for reversal is that the trial court erred in instruction No. 1 given to the jury.

A city is not responsible for every accident that may happen in its streets which results in personal injuries. With the greatest vigilance and utmost foresight, there will be accidents for which no one, in any legal sense, is to blame. The corporate authorities are only bound to use reasonable skill and diligence to make the streets and sidewalks safe and convenient for travel. They are under no obligations to provide for everything that may happen upon them, but only for such instances as ordinarily exist, or such as may be reasonably expected to occur. See Dill. Mun. Corp. § 1019 and Elliott, Roads & S. §§ 613-615. There are very few streets that can be kept so absolutely safe as to preclude the possibility of accident, and the law does not prescribe for municipal corporations a measure of duty which is impossible of fulfillment, or a different rule of liability from that which ordinarily obtains in the affairs of life. But it...