Jones v. Collins
| Decision Date | 04 January 1901 |
| Parties | JONES v. COLLINS et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
I. R. Clark and E. J. Flynn, for plaintiff.
Charles W. Bartlett and Elbridge R. Anderson, for defendants.
In the summer of 1896 an extension of Columbus avenue, in Boston 100 feet in width, was laid out as a public street. Included in the limits of the laying out was Seaver street, a public way 40 feet wide. The construction of the new street involved the tearing up of the whole surface of Seaver street, as well as of the rest of the new street. The defendants, under a contract with the city, began about the last of August to construct the new street. This work had not been completed when the plaintiff was hurt, on the 19th of the following September, by falling over a water shut-off pipe in a part of what had been Seaver street, and which would be part of the sidewalk of the new street when constructed.
At the trial there was no dispute that at the time of the accident the work of construction was still in progress. Notice that the street was closed for travel had been given at the commencement of the work by placing horses and other obstructions, with appropriate signs, across each end of the new street, and across the ends of each street leading into it, and these obstructions and signs were still in place. The obstructions did not extend across the whole of the space at the ends of the new street, nor across the whole width of the side streets. There was sufficient free space at the sides so that persons on foot could get into the space included within the lines of the new street without removing or climbing over any obstructions. But the obstructions and signs were so placed, and so numerous, and of such a nature as to be well calculated to give ample notice to the public that the street was in process of construction, and was not open for travel.
The plaintiff's evidence tended to show that she did not know that the street was in process of construction, or closed for travel, and that having business with a resident of a house which abutted on the new street, and to which the access had been through Seaver street, she walked through a side street into the new street during the evening of September 19th, and along the new street, without perceiving any obstruction or sign, or any indication of danger, to the house at which she had business; and that after doing her errand there she walked away, in that part of the new street which was to be its sidewalk, and ran into the shut-off pipe, which projected some inches above the surface, and was not marked by a light. At the trial the defendants contended that they were not negligent in allowing, during the progress of construction, the shut-off pipe to stand exposed above the surface, and unmarked by a light, and that the plaintiff went upon the street at her own risk. But the court ruled otherwise, and allowed the jury to find the defendants negligent in...
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