Crocker v. City of Hartford

• Decision Date: 22 June 1895
• Citation: 34 A. 98,66 Conn. 387
• Parties: CROCKER v. CITY OF HARTFORD.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

34 A. 98

66 Conn. 387

CROCKER

v. CITY OF HARTFORD.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 22, 1895.

Case reserved from superior court, Hartford county; Thayer, Judge.

Action by George W. Crocker against the city of Hartford for personal injuries caused by a defective sidewalk. Case reserved on defendant's demurrer to the complaint, for the consideration and advice of the supreme court. Demurrer sustained.

Daniel A. Markham, for plaintiff.

William F. Henney, for defendant.

HALL, J. The complaint in this case alleges that the plaintiff, on the 18th of February, 1893, sustained an internal bodily injury as the result of a fall upon a sidewalk in the city of Hartford, which, by reason of snow and ice, had become dangerous for public travel, and the dangerous condition of which was well known to the defendant. The language of the fifth paragraph of the amended complaint is. as follows: "That he [the plaintiff] had no knowledge, intimation, or suspicion of said internal bodily injury, within 15 days from the time of said fall, and because thereof was prevented and unable, within 15 days from the time of said fall, to give a written notice to the defendant of said injury, or the nature and cause thereof, or the time and place of its occurrence, and because thereof did not, within 15 days from the time of said fall, give a written notice to the defendant of said injury, or the nature and cause thereof, or the time and place of its occurrence." It appears, from the complaint, that on the 1st of April, 1893, the plaintiff was aware of the internal injury which he had thus sustained by the fall. The present action was commenced on the 16th of February, 1895. To this complaint the defendant demurred, upon the ground that it was not alleged, in the complaint, that any notice of the time, place, cause, and nature of said injury was ever given to the clerk of said city.

This suit is based upon section 2673 of the General Statutes, which gives a right of action for an injury to person or property arising from a defective highway against the party bound to keep it in repair, but which expressly provides that "no action for any such injury shall be maintained against any town, city, corporation or borough, unless written notice of such injury and of the nature and cause thereof and the time and place of its occurrence shall, within sixty days thereafter, or if such defect consists of snow or ice or both, within fifteen days thereafter, be given to a selectman of said town, or the clerk of such city, corporation or borough." The proposition presented by the complaint before us is that a person who, by reason of a defect in a street, consisting of snow and ice, has received an internal injury, the existence of which he neither knows nor suspects until more than 15 days after he has received it, may, nearly two years after he has become aware of his injury, and without having given any notice other than by the commencement of suit, maintain an action, under the section above referred to, against the city, required by its charter to keep its streets in a safe condition for public travel. We are asked by the plaintiff to either so construe the...