Cusick v. City of New Haven

• Decision Date: 11 July 1961
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Anna CUSICK v. CITY OF NEW HAVEN. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 905

172 A.2d 905

148 Conn. 548

Anna CUSICK v. CITY OF NEW HAVEN.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 11, 1961.

Thomas F. Keyes, Jr., New Haven, with whom, on the brief, were Harold M. Mulvey, A. Frederick Mignone and Horace F. Trotta, New Haven, for appellant (defendant).

Joseph B. Clark, New Haven, with whom was David J. McCoy, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., KING, MURPHY, and SHEA, JJ., and BORDON, Superior Court Judge.

SHEA, Associate Justice.

The plaintiff brought this action to recover damages for injuries which she sustained as the result of a fall on an icy sidewalk in New Haven. The court rendered judgment for her, and the defendant has appealed.

The finding, with certain corrections, sets forth the following facts: On March 2, 1957, at about 6:45 a. m., the plaintiff slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk in front of the premises at 242 Hallock Avenue. She worked on the night shift in a factory located across the street and was walking home from work at the time of the accident. The sidewalk was extremely slippery. It had not been sanded, nor had a similar abrasive substance been applied to it. On the nights of February 28 and March 1, around 11 p. m., while walking to work, the plaintiff had observed, from across the street, that the sidewalk in front of 242 Hallock Avenue was covered with ice. When she went to work on the night preceding her fall, it was snowing and sleeting. Precipitation ceased sometime during the night. When the plaintiff fell, the walk was in a more dangerous condition and was more slippery than when she had observed it at 11 p. m. on the preceding night. The storm which ended during the night had begun in the form of rain on February 28, at about 4:20 p. m. At that time, the city sidewalks were free of snow or sleet. At 8:45 p. m., the storm turned into a freezing rain, followed at 9:30 p. m. by sleet which continued to fall until the morning hours of March 1. Sleet mixed with snow fell during the entire day of March 1, covering the streets with an accumulation of about one inch. Freezing temperatures prevailed throughout that day and on the morning of March 2. Hallock Avenue is located approximately one and one quarter miles from the center of the city, which has 232 miles of streets and 330 miles of sidewalks to maintain.

On these facts, the trial court concluded that the icy condition had existed on the sidewalk two full days before the accident, that the defendant knew or should have known of the hazardous condition, and that the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to remedy the condition, which was the sole cause of the plaintiff's fall. The defendant contends that the facts do not support these conclusions. The city could not be held liable unless the defective condition which caused the plaintiff's fall had existed for such a length of time that the city was charged with notice of it and had a reasonable opportunity to remedy the defect. Yandow v. City and Town of Bristol, 145 Conn. 703, 704, 146 A.2d. 409; Wadlund v. City of Hartford, 139 Conn. 169, 172, 91 A.2d 10; Ritter v. City of Shelton, 105 Conn. 447, 450, 135 A. 535. There is nothing in the finding to show that there was any ice upon this sidewalk on February 28 at 8:45 p. m., when the rain which was then falling began to freeze. Thereafter, the storm kept changing from sleet to snow until it ended, so conditions on the surface of the sidewalks could not have remained the same. The facts...