City of St. Louis v. Connecticut Mut. Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 23 November 1891
• Citation: 107 Mo. 92,17 S.W. 637
• Parties: CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CONNECTICUT MUT. LIFE INS. CO.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

17 S.W. 637

107 Mo. 92

CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CONNECTICUT MUT. LIFE INS. CO.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

November 23, 1891.

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS — DEFECTIVE SIDEWALKS — LIABILITIES OF ABUTTING OWNERS.

The violation of a city ordinance which required the owner of property fronting on a street to keep his sidewalk free from snow and ice, and prescribed a penalty for such violation, does not make such owner liable to the city for damages paid by it to one who received injuries by reason of the property owner's failure to keep his sidewalk clean.

Appeal from St. Louis circuit court. Affirmed.

Action by the city of St. Louis against the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company to recover money paid by plaintiff by reason of defendant's failure to keep the sidewalk in front of its building free from snow and ice. Defendant's demurrer to the plaintiff's petition was sustained, and plaintiff appeals.

W. C. Marshall, for appellant. Lee & Ellis and Montague Lyon, for respondent.

BRACE, J.

This is an appeal from the judgment of the circuit court sustaining a demurrer to plaintiff's petition. The cause of action set up in the petition is that the plaintiff, by the final judgment of the circuit court of the city of St. Louis, was compelled to pay one Mattie C. Norton the sum of $1,291.18, damages and costs, for injuries received by her from a fall in passing over a sidewalk on Locust street, in said city, in front of defendant's property, made dangerous and unsafe by an accumulation of snow and ice thereon, which the defendant suffered and allowed to remain in violation of the city ordinances; wherefore the city asks judgment for the amount it was so compelled to pay. The ordinances recited in the petition require the owners to keep the sidewalk and gutters in front of their property clean, and, after any fall of snow, to cause the snow to be immediately removed from the sidewalk fronting their property into the carriage-way of the street, and declare any person failing to comply with this requirement guilty of a misdemeanor, upon conviction of which such person is to be fined not less than five nor more than twenty dollars.

Before the judgment against the city in favor of Mrs. Norton became conclusive, the case was reviewed on appeal in this court. Norton v. City of St. Louis, 97 Mo. 537, 11 S. W. Rep. 242. In that case the city undertook to devolve upon the defendant here primary liability for the injuries Mrs. Norton received by reason of the unsafe and dangerous condition of the sidewalk on which she fell. We there held that it was the duty of the city to keep its sidewalks in a reasonably safe condition for persons traveling thereon, and that it could not evade or cast this duty upon others; and took occasion to say: "Conceding that the city has the power to cause obstructions upon the sidewalk to be removed at the expense of the owners of the ground fronting thereon, (Charter, art. 3, § 21, par. 9,) and that the ordinances requiring such owners immediately after any fall of snow to cause the same to be removed is a legitimate mode of exercising that power, yet the city could not by passing such an ordinance relieve itself of its duty to the plaintiff, and to the public traveling on its streets, of keeping its sidewalks in a reasonably safe condition for travelers thereon, or transfer or impose that duty upon another; nor can its liability for a failure to discharge that duty be made contingent upon the liability of the citizen to the city for a failure to...