Holmes v. Drew
| Citation | 25 N.E. 22,151 Mass. 578 |
| Parties | HOLMES v. DREW. |
| Decision Date | 20 June 1890 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts |
Exceptions from superior court, Suffolk county; CALEB BLODGETT, Judge.
Where an abutting owner moved her building back from the street and paved a sidewalk on her land, it is a question for the jury whether she thereby invites to cross her land one who is injured by defects in the walk.
Action of tort brought by John S. Holmes against Hannah H. Drew. At the trial it appeared that defendant was, and for about five years had been, the owner of the estate on which stands the Hotel Exeter, at the south-westerly corner of West Rutland square and Carleton street, abutting on West Rutland square, and also of the fee in a strip 10 feet wide of Carleton street, adjacent to the Hotel Exeter; that West Rutland square was a public street in the city of Boston laid out 15 feet wide, and extending by means of a bridge over the Boston & Providence Railroad to another public way that the buildings fronting on both sides of the square including the Hotel Exeter, had been set back by their owners some 16 feet from the street line, and a paved sidewalk put upon the space thus left between the street line and these buildings; that on the southerly side of the square, and in front of defendant's estate, the brick sidewalk at this time was nowhere less than 8 feet wide, but less than 8 inches of this brick sidewalk was included within the street limits, the residue being on the defendant's land, so laid and constructed as apparently to constitute a part of the public sidewalk, with nothing to indicate the line of separation. There was evidence tending to show that the bricks towards the westerly end of this sidewalk, in front of defendant's building, and upon her land, had become loose, misplaced, and thrown into various irregular positions; that the bricks at the end of the sidewalk had been kept in place by a board, which at this time projected above the bricks for distances varying from an inch and a quarter to six inches and a quarter; and that this state of things, both as to the bricks and the board, had continued for some months before and until after November 4, 1887; that on that day plaintiff, while walking along the sidewalk in the evening, stumbled upon the loose bricks, and fell over them and the projecting board into Carleton street, and was injured. It appeared that Carleton street, though used for...
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