Doerr v. City of Newark, 13.

• Citation: 27 A.2d 198,128 N.J.L. 491
• Decision Date: 22 July 1942
• Docket Number: No. 13.,13.
• Parties: DOERR v. CITY OF NEWARK.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

27 A.2d 198
128 N.J.L. 491

DOERR
v.
CITY OF NEWARK.

No. 13.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

July 22, 1942.

Appeal from Court of Common Pleas, Essex County.

Action by Augusta Doerr against the City of Newark for injuries sustained by plaintiff in a fall in the city hall. From a judgment entered upon an order striking out the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, plaintiff appeals.

Judgment affirmed.

27 A.2d 199

May term, 1942, before BROGAN, C. J., and PARKER and PORTER, JJ.

Perry E. Belfatto, of Newark, for plaintiff-appellant.

Raymond Schroeder, Corp. Counsel, of Newark (Louis A. Fast, of Newark, of counsel), for defendant-appellee.

PER CURIAM.

The plaintiff appeals from a judgment for the defendant, resulting from an order of the learned trial judge, striking out the complaint because it failed to show a cause of action.

The complaint says that the defendant, a municipal corporation, is engaged in the business of supplying water to its citizens; that the plaintiff is a citizen and property owner and that the municipal defendant maintained an office in its City Hall in the City of Newark for the purpose of transacting the business of the sale of water; that it was the duty of the City of Newark, under the circumstances, "to use such due and proper care in and about said City Hall so as to maintain and keep said City Hall in a reasonably safe and secure manner and so as to make said City Hall reasonably safe and secure for the persons entering in and upon the same for the purpose of transacting" such business; that on the first day of November, 1938, the City Hall was maintained in a "careless, dangerous, negligent and hazardous manner" as a direct and proximate result of which the plaintiff, while in the City Hall for the purpose of transacting the business of paying a water bill, was thrown to the ground and injured. A second count alleges that the manner in which the City Hall was maintained constituted a nuisance which was the direct cause of the plaintiff's fall and injury.

The appellant's brief says that the municipality maintains its "water office" in the City Hall at Newark, N. J.; that the appellant went to the City Hall for the purpose of paying a water bill; that when she was on the City Hall premises...