Fontaine v. Follett
| Decision Date | 16 June 1931 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 6963, 6964.,s. 6963, 6964. |
| Citation | 155 A. 363 |
| Parties | FONTAINE v. FOLLETT, City Treasurer (two cases). |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Alexander L. Churchill, Judge.
Actions of trespass on the case by Henri Fontaine, a minor, by his next friend, Edouard Fontaine, and by the latter on his own behalf, against Arthur J. Follett, Treasurer of the City of Woonsocket. Verdicts for plaintiffs, and defendant brings exceptions.
Exceptions overruled, and cases remitted, with directions.
John R. Higgins, of Woonsocket, for plaintiffs.
Ovila Lambert, City Sol., of Woonsocket,
for defendant.
These are actions of trespass on the case for negligence brought against the defendant as city treasurer of the city of Woonsocket. The plaintiff Henri Fontaine, a minor, who sues by his father, Edouard Fontaine, as next friend, seeks to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained when a bicycle on which said plaintiff Henri was riding struck a depression on Gaulin avenue in said city of Woonsocket, throwing him to the street. The plaintiff Edouard Fontaine sues for consequential damages arising to him by reason of the loss of services of his son and expenses occasioned by the injury to said son. The cases were tried together by a justice of the superior court, sitting with a jury, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff Henri in the sum of $1,000 and for the plaintiff Edouard in the sum of $400. The defendant duly filed in each case a motion for a new trial, which was denied.
No objection was raised at the hearing in this court or before the trial justice as to the amount of damages awarded by the jury in either case.
The cases are before us on bills of exceptions; the defendant relying on his exceptions to the refusal of the court below to grant defendant's motion for directed verdicts; to the refusal of said court to grant defendant's motions for new trials; and to the refusal of the court to allow defendant in cross-examination of one Seagrave, an engineer, produced as a witness for the plaintiffs, to ask whether in his opinion Gaulin avenue was safe and convenient for travelers with teams, carts, and carriages.
The plaintiff Henri, while riding a bicycle along Gaulin avenue in the city of Woonsocket, April 6, 1929, at 9:30 o'clock p. m., ran into a depression around a water valve box, and was thrown to the ground and injured. This depression was caused by an employee of the water department of the city of Woonsocket detailed to raise the water valve box at this particular point, breaking the macadam immediately surrounding the said box, raising said box, and leaving a considerable space between the broken macadam and the side of the valve box. This depression at its lowest point was about two and one-half inches below the surface of the macadam, and, as may be observed from the photographs introduced in evidence, one side of the valve box stood up sharply from the depression. It appeared that the plaintiff turned a corner just previous to reaching the valve box; that he had never seen the valve box before that night; that it was dark, and the electric light at the corner did not show the valve box protruding above the ground; that his arm was fractured, and he was unable to work for nine months. It also appeared that the valve box was somewhat over a foot in diameter, was made of cast iron, and was not quite in the center of the road; that the depression surrounding the valve box was practically five and one-half inches wide at all points outside of the valve box rim, making a circular hole about twenty-three inches in diameter, with the valve box standing in the center of the same.
The accident occurred after the valve box had been raised, and previous to the time that the surface of the street around the valve box was repaired. It also appeared in the evidence that one Daignault, three weeks before the accident in question, struck the box while coasting in a small, hand-drawn wagon, with the result that the wagon was overturned and witness thrown out onto the road.
In his first ground of exception to the refusal of the trial court to direct verdicts, defendant contends that plaintiff...
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State v. Kozukonis
...reconcilable, though in a negative way, with the Wigmore approach. Thus, we held inadmissible an opinion of an expert in Fontaine v. Follett, 51 R.I. 413, 155 A. 363, on the question of whether a highway was safe and convenient for travelers with teams, carts, and carriages, and in Glennon ......
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R.I. Res. Recovery Corp. v. Restivo Monacelli LLP., 2016–140–Appeal.
...(1974) ; see also Glennon v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. , 87 R.I. 454, 457, 143 A.2d 282, 284 (1958) ; Fontaine v. Follett , 51 R.I. 413, 416–17, 155 A. 363, 364 (1931).We have more recently articulated the standard to be applied as follows: "It is well settled that expert testimony i......
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Enos v. W. T. Grant Co.
...That offer, even were we not to fault it because it falls short of the Manning standards, would be inadmissible under Fontaine v. Follett, 51 R.I. 413, 155 A. 363 (1931) where the court said that an engineer's opinion as to whether a highway was safe and convenient for travel was properly e......
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State v. Lutye
...recitation of his observations. Glennon v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 87 R.I. 454, 143 A.2d 282 (1958); Fontaine v. Follett, 51 R.I. 413, 416-417, 155 A. 363, 364 (1931). Nothing in the record here, on in defendant's arguments, suggests that the jury in this case, once it became awar......