Cool v. Vesey
| Decision Date | 09 May 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 70--693,70--693 |
| Citation | 31 Colo.App. 1,499 P.2d 642 |
| Parties | Dorothea COOL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Richard VESEY, Defendant-Appellant. . I |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
Ralph A. Cole, Denver, for plaintiff-appellee.
Burnett, Watson, Horan & Hilgers, Edward Carelli, William P. Horan, Denver, for defendant-appellant.
Plaintiff-appellee, Dorothea Cool, brought this action to recover damages for injuries she sustained when she tripped and fell in a parkway located between a city sidewalk and the curb of the street. The defendant is the owner of the property adjoining the street and sidewalk at the place where plaintiff fell. The jury resolved the issues of negligence and contributory negligence in plaintiff's favor and assessed her damages in the amount of $5,000. The defendant has appealed the judgment entered on the verdict. We affirm.
On October 3, 1968, at approximately 9:15 p.m., plaintiff was alighting from a car parked at the curb in front of defendant's property in Denver, Colorado. After she got out of the car, she stepped forward and tripped and fell over an obstruction in the parkway. The obstruction, known as a stop box, is a pipe mounted vertically in the ground and containing a shut-off valve in the water line connecting the main line in the street to the buildings located on defendant's property.
The Board of Water Commissioners operates the water system of the City and County of Denver and maintains and controls the main lines in the streets. The service lines are installed and maintained by the water user. The regulations promulgated by the Board provide:
The regulations further provide:
Under these regulations, the maintenance of the stop box is the responsibility of the property owner. Stop boxes may be and are used by both the property owner and the water board.
On this appeal, defendant does not contest the jury's finding that the stop box was negligently maintained. He contends, however, that as to the plaintiff he had no duty to maintain the stop box in reasonably safe condition. On this issue of defendant's duty to plaintiff, the court instructed the jury as follows:
'An abutting landowner who utilizes an instrumentality in a public way in the beneficial use of his property and said instrumentality is under his control likewise has the duty to use reasonable care in the construction and maintenance of the instrumentality in a reasonably safe condition . . ..
'You are instructed that if you find from the evidence that the protruding pipe in question was an instrumentality used by the defendant in the beneficial ownership of his property and was under the control of the defendant it was the duty of the defendant to exercise reasonable care to maintain it . . ..'
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Bittle v. Brunetti
...action to assure that recreational equipment such as a trampoline [was] not used under unsafe conditions"). Compare Cool v. Vesey, 31 Colo.App. 1, 499 P.2d 642 (1972) (since property owner owned stop box--vertical pipe containing shut-off valve for water--located on public "parkway" between......
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Bethesda Armature Co., Inc. v. Sullivan
...Jankowski v. Bridgeport, 34 Conn.Sup. 1, 373 A.2d 1 (1977); Jensen v. Johnson, 304 Minn. 564, 230 N.W.2d 61 (1975); Cool v. Vesey, 31 Colo.App. 1, 499 P.2d 642 (1972); Crosswhite v. Lincoln, 185 Neb. 331, 175 N.W.2d 908 (1970); Cuddy v. Shell Petroleum Corp., 127 S.W.2d 24 (Mo.App.1939), af......
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Henderson v. Smallcomb
...in sidewalk to facilitate removal of refuse, placement of pipe for heating oil, or installation of driveway cutout); Cool v. Vesey, 31 Colo.App. 1, 499 P.2d 642 (1972) (stop box installed by defendant in city right-of-way which benefited defendant's property gave rise to duty of care); Math......
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Woods v. Delgar Ltd., No. 08CA1288.
...spreading the gravel on the entrance to the parking area where cars could kick the gravel onto the sidewalk. In Cool v. Vesey, 31 Colo.App. 1, 3-4, 499 P.2d 642, 643-44 (1972), the defendant was the landowner and controlled the construction and maintenance of the injury-causing instrumental......