Hannaford v. Kinne

• Decision Date: 21 May 1908
• Citation: Hannaford v. Kinne, 199 Mass. 63, 85 N.E. 187 (Mass. 1908)
• Parties: HANNAFORD v. KINNE (two cases).
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

199 Mass. 63

85 N.E. 187

HANNAFORD v. KINNE (two cases).

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

May 21, 1908

COUNSEL

Augustine J. Daly and Francis J. Carney, for plaintiffs.

John Lowell and James A. Lowell, for defendant.

OPINION

MORTON J.

These two actions, one by the female plaintiff whom we shall speak of as the plaintiff and the other by her husband, were tried together and at the close of the evidence for the plaintiffs the court directed verdicts for the defendant. The cases are here on exceptions by the plaintiffs to this ruling.

The plaintiff and her husband occupied a tenement in a house belonging to the defendant. There were five other tenements in the house, of which the defendant occupied one. In going down a flight of steps at the back of the house which were for the common use of all of the tenants the plaintiff slipped and fell on the ice with which the steps were covered, and which was, as one of the witnesses testified rough and hubbly, and received the injuries complained of. The ice was caused by water which dropped and fell onto the steps from a 'goose neck' so called projecting from the gutter in the eaves at the top of the house. There was no conductor attached to the goose neck to prevent the water from falling onto the steps. There was testimony tending to show that before the accident the defendant had repaired the steps by putting in three new treads, and had made some repairs in the tenements. So far as the goose neck and the want of a conductor were concerned the premises were in the same condition at the time of the accident in which they were at the time when the plaintiff and her husband hired the tenement seven months before. If the absence of a conductor and the manner in which water came down from the goose neck onto the steps was a defect, it was an obvious one, and the plaintiff and her husband must be...