Hodges v. City of Waterloo
Citation | 80 N.W. 523,109 Iowa 444 |
Parties | HODGES v. CITY OF WATERLOO. |
Decision Date | 20 October 1899 |
Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from district court, Blackhawk county; Franklin C. Platt, Judge.
Action to recover damages for personal injuries. When the evidence was all in, the court, on motion of defendant, directed a verdict in its favor. From a judgment rendered on such verdict taxing costs to plaintiff, she appeals. Reversed.Boies & Boies, for appellant.
J. E. Williams and Courtright & Arbuckle, for appellee.
Plaintiff's injuries were caused by a fall upon a street in defendant city. The petition charges negligence in two counts. In the first it is alleged that the accident was caused by ice which had been permitted to accumulate upon the sidewalk in a rough and uneven form, and in the second count the charge is made that such walk was negligently constructed, in that the outer 7 feet of the same, the walk being 14 feet wide, was sloped too much down to the level of the driveway of the street, the place where plaintiff fell being the paved crossing of an alleyway. The street in question was one of the leading thoroughfares in the city. There was evidence tending to show that, at the point where plaintiff fell, ice had accumulated upon the walk, and that the surface was broken, irregular, and uneven, and had been so for about a week prior to the accident. Plaintiff's fall occurred in the evening of Monday, January 18, 1897. There was evidence going to show that in crossing the alleyway she stepped upon a hummock of ice that projected above the general level some four or five inches. She says that, when her foot rested upon this raised surface, “my toes did not touch, neither did the sides of my foot.”
That a city is liable for injuries caused by snow and ice upon its walks, if the surface is permitted to be in an irregular, rough, and rounded condition, is well settled in this state. Huston v. City of Council Bluffs, 101 Iowa, 33, 69 N. W. 1130. But defendant seeks to meet this point by showing that, but a day or two previous to the accident, there was a drizzling rain, which froze as it fell, covering the streets and walks with a glare of ice, and that it was this condition which caused the accident. We quote something of what defendant'scounsel say on this point:
If this icy projection existed before the storm and freezing weather of the 16th and 17th, then the fact that it was covered with a fresh coating of ice thereby will not tend to relieve defendant from liability. The rule is thus stated in Langhammer...
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