Cuneo v. O'Connor
| Decision Date | 23 June 1904 |
| Citation | 210 Ill. 284,71 N.E. 379 |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
| Parties | GARIBALDI & CUNEO v. O'CONNOR. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Appellate Court, First District.
Action by Fanny O'Connor against John Garibaldi and others. From a judgment of the Appellate Court affirming a judgment for plaintiff, defendants appeal. Affirmed.
Utt Bros., for appellants.
P. S. O'Ryan, for appellee.
The judgment of the circuit court of Cook county awarding appellee damages in the sum of $3,500 against the appellants for a personal injury received by the appellee from a fall on the sidewalk in front of the place of business of the appellants in the city of Chicago was affirmed by the Appellate Court for the First District, and by their further appeal the appellants have brought the record into review in this court.
The appellants were engaged in business, as dealers in fruits, in a building at the corner of State and South Water streets, in the city of Chicago. Their business house had its front on South Water street and the east side thereof abutted on State street a distance of about 95 feet. The theory upon which recovery was had was that the appellants had unreasonably and unnecessarily so occupied and obstructed the sidewalk on State street with boxes containing bananas or other fruits, bunches of bananas and barrels, as to force pedestrians into a narrow passageway between the boxes and barrels, which was littered with straw, hay, and loose bananas, and that the appellee, in company with her sister, when endeavoring to pass along the sidewalk, was forced into this narrow passageway, and while walking there, in order to permit the passage of a workman who was wheeling a truck, she stepped behind her sister, and, while walking there, stepped upon a banana and slipped and fell to the pavement, and thereby received the injuries for which the damages were allowed. Appellants contend there was no proof that they or any of their employés dropped or placed or caused the banana upon which appellee fell to be upon the walk, and that the only ground upon which the recovery can be supported is that the appellants were charged with the duty of seeing that that portion of the sidewalk where appellee was walking was in a safe condition for the safe passage of pedestrians, and appellants insist that by their motion for a peremptory instruction to the jury to return a verdict in their favor, and by the presentation to the court of certain instructions to be given to the jury, and the refusal of the court to give the same, the question whether such duty devolved upon the appellants is presented to this court for determination.
The evidence showed the appellants received daily about a car load of bananas in bunches, as they grew in a state of nature, and that they made sales daily of about the same quantity of bananas; that they had a basement extending under the sidewalk on State street, and maintained five holes or openings near the curb line of the sidewalk on that side of the building, through which the bananas were passed into the basement; that they delivered these bananas to their customers sometimes through the openings in the sidewalk and at other times through the front doors of their establishment, which opened on South Water street. The bananas were delivered to their customers either boxed or in barrels or in bunches, as received. The boxes of bananas and the bunches which were brought out of the front door of the store for delivery to customers were often, in fact daily, brought around to and piled upon the sidewalk on State street, as were also boxes and other packages and articles prepared for delivery to the customers of the appellants. These boxes, barrels, and loose bunches of bananas, on the day on which the appellee was injured, were so placed upon the walk as to occupy all of the walk except a narrow passageway near the middle thereof, and were piled to such a height that a person passing along the sidewalk could ...
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Johnston v. City of East Moline
...case the earlier negligent act, if it contributed to the injuries, may be regarded as the proximate cause. Garibaldi & Cuneo v. O'Connor, 210 Ill. 284, 71 N.E. 379,66 L.R.A. 73;Armour v. Golkowska, 202 Ill. 144, 66 N.E. 1037.’ Other leading cases on the question of proximate cause are the f......
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Greene v. City of Chicago
...in which case the earlier negligent act, if it contributed to the injuries, may be regarded as the proximate cause. Garibaldi & Cuneo v. O'Connor, 210 Ill. 284, 71 N.E. 379; Armour v. Golkowska, 202 Ill. 144, 66 N.E. Concerning the contentions with respect to Ferm's driving while intoxicate......
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Bradley v. Degnon Contracting Co.
...v. Gilman, 107 N. Y. 360, 14 N. E. 264,1 Am. St. Rep. 831;Bates v. Holbrook, 171 N. Y. 460, 64 N. E. 181;Garibaldi & Cuneo v. O'Connor, 210 Ill. 284, 71 N. E. 379,66 L. R. A. 73. Under the facts and the authorities, it is manifest that the tramway was not, as a matter of law, an obstruction......
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Johnston v. City of East Moline
...7 N.E.2d 740, 111 A.L.R. 1133; Wintersteen v. National Cooperage & Woodenware Co., 361 Ill. 95, 197 N.E. 578; Garibaldi & Cuneo v. O'Connor, 210 Ill. 284, 71 N.E. 379, 66 L.R.A. 73; Armour v. Golkowska, 202 Ill. 144, 66 N.E. Can the city evade responsibility for this injury on the theory th......