Lenz v. City of Minneapolis, 41307
Decision Date | 03 April 1969 |
Docket Number | No. 41307,41307 |
Citation | 283 Minn. 180,167 N.W.2d 22 |
Parties | Harry LENZ, et al., Respondents, v. CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS et al., Defendants, Jack Beugen, et al., Appellants. |
Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. As a general rule, one who so constructs or maintains a structure upon his premises as to cause an artificial discharge or accumulation of water upon a public way, which, by its freezing, makes the use f the way dangerous, will be held liable to one who, being rightfully upon the way and exercising due care, is injured in consequence of such dangerous condition.
2. The injured plaintiff was not required to establish that a ridge of ice caused her to slip and fall. Liability may be imposed on defendants if a glare of ice brought about by artificial means directly under the control of defendants caused the fall.
3. When the evidence is considered as a whole, there is sufficient evidence, both direct and circumstantial, to sustain the verdicts. Defendants would have the burden of proving a reasonably safe alternative route was available to plaintiff.
4. The evidence established that defendants' negligence was a proximate cause of plaintiff's injury. They are liable for their own negligence and are not exonerated from such liability by the fact that their negligence had been only a contributing cause to the creation of the dangerous condition.
5. The issues were fairly submitted to the jury by the trial court's instructions.
Rischmiller & Wasche, Minneapolis, for appellants.
William E. Mason, Minneapolis, for respondents.
Heard before KUNTSON, C.J., and NELSON, MURPHY, OTIS, and FRANK T. GALLAGHER, JJ.
In this action to recover damages resulting from a fall on a public sidewalk, plaintiff Elizabeth Lenz received a verdict of $3,500 and plaintiff Harry Lenz, her husband, received one of $360. Defendant city of Minneapolis was granted a summary judgment prior to trial. The other defendants appeal from an order denying their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial.
If all conflicts in the evidence are resolved in favor of the prevailing parties below, the facts appear to be as follows: Mrs. Lenz suffered a fall on a public sidewalk in Minneapolis on March 15, 1965. She was at that time a healthy, middleaged woman en route to her work and was walking in a generally southerly direction alongside a building belonging to defendants which abuts the west side of Emerson Avenue North. The sidewalk in question extends in length about one-half block. There is no boulevard between the sidewalk and Emerson Avenue. The city of Minneapolis in plowing Emerson Avenue regularly plowed the snow up and onto the sidewalk. The portion of the public sidewalk adjacent to defendants' vacant building was never shoveled or cleared at any time herein material. Snowfall during the first 2 1/2 months of 1965 had been heavy, and people using this sidewalk had walked a path down the middle of the 10-to-12-foot-wide sidewalk. This pedestrian traffic, together with intermittent thawing, freezing, snowing, drifting, melting, and plowing of the snow from the street onto the sidewalk had resulted in an uneven, icy, and rutted condition on the path for the entire length of the sidewalk adjacent to defendants' building. This path had become progressively worse from January 1 until the time of plaintiff's fall on March 15, 1965.
The path was approximately 2 to 5 feet from the doorstep of a drugstore in defendants' building, was 1 to 2 feet wide, and was about 4 to 5 feet from the side of the building. Mrs. Lenz, wearing vinyltopped, rubber-soled 'storm boots,' was walking in this path, as she had done all winter, en route to work. Her progress was satisfactory until she fell by the drugstore doorstep. Over the drugstore door there was a canopy or overhang protruding over the sidewalk. This canopy was about 2 to 3 feet wide and about 5 or 6 feet in length. Snow and ice, or a combination thereof, had existed all winter on the sidewalk and path. Many times between January and March of 1965 snow on the canopy melted and the water dripped on the doorstep or on the sidewalk, or on both. The dripping which came from the canopy worsened the condition of the sidewalk and path by the doorstep.
On the date plaintiff fell, the snow on the sidewalk varied from 20 to 40 inches and the snow and ice, or a combination thereof, was 6 to 8 inches deep at the point where she fell. While plaintiff did not know whether she slipped on a flat surface or on a ridge, she testified that the surface where she fell was 'ice and snow.'
There was testimony to the effect that the area by the doorstep was 'more slippery and rigid' than the rest of the path and the sidewalk, although the entire length of the sidewalk adjacent to defendants' vacant building was never shoveled or cleared of any substance at any time material herein. Defendants produced no evidence to show they had taken any action to prevent melting snow and ice from dripping from the canopy onto the public way and freezing thereon.
1. The essential question on this appeal is whether the evidence is sufficient to support the verdicts. We think it quite clear that as a general rule an owner or occupant of abutting property owes no duty to pedestrians to keep sidewalks safe from the hazards of ice and snow which have naturally accumulated thereon in the absence of a statute imposing such duty. We have held this to be true even though dangerous ridges are formed as a result of normal vehicular or pedestrian traffic. However, where the accumulation of ice and snow is due to artificial causes, the landowner may become liable for injuries resulting therefrom. Thus, if defendants here increased the hazard that normally existed during the winter months by permitting snow and ice which had accumulated on the canopy or overhang attached to their building to melt and trickle onto the sidewalk, this introduced a new element of danger which, if established by competent evidence, might well create liability. It has been laid down as a general rule that one who so constructs or maintains a structure upon his premises as to cause an artificial discharge or accumulation of water upon a public way, which, by its freezing, makes the use of the way dangerous, will be held liable to one who, being rightfully upon the way and exercising due care, is injured in consequence of such dangerous condition. 39 Am.Jur.(2d) Highways, Streets, and Bridges, § 520; Rudd v. Lyceum Dramatic Productions, Inc., 250 Minn. 328, 85 N.W.2d 61.
Courts from other jurisdictions have applied this general rule. In Calway v. William Schaal & Son, Inc., 113 Conn. 586, 155 A. 813, ...
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...by accumulation and discharge of water from the landowner's property which causes a hazardous condition. See Lenz v. City of Minneapolis, 283 Minn. 180, 183, 167 N.W.2d 22 (1969). Accord, Pritchard v. Mabrey, 358 Mass. 137, 260 N.E.2d 712 (1970); Strandness v. Montgomery Ward, 199 N.W.2d 69......
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