Leonard v. City of Boston
| Decision Date | 27 February 1903 |
| Citation | 66 N.E. 596,183 Mass. 68 |
| Parties | LEONARD v. CITY OF BOSTON. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Wm L. Strickland and Daggett, Young & Jefferson, for plaintiff.
Samuel M. Child, for defendant.
The accident in this case occurred on September 9, 1899, between 8 and 9 o'clock in the evening. The plaintiff, a girl about 16 years old, was walking with her sister along Dorchester avenue, in Boston, when she came to a place in front of a blacksmith shop, where there was a board, with a lantern on the end, across a part of the sidewalk, running from the shop to a tree. Some 30 feet off was another board running from a building to a telegraph pole. The distance from the outside of the tree to the curbstone was about 5 feet and 2 inches, and the distance from the curbstone to the outside of the telegraph pole was 2 feet. The sidewalk was 11 or 12 feet wide. The inclosure of a part of the sidewalk was by authority of a permit from the superintendent of streets of the city of Boston. The girls saw the board fastened to the tree and the lantern. They passed on the outside of the tree, and after taking a step or two beyond it the plaintiff fell over some stones and was injured. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the case is before us on the defendant's exceptions, with a full report of the evidence bearing upon the question of liability.
We are of opinion that the exceptions must be overruled. We do not consider it necessary to determine whether, under the permit which had been obtained from the superintendent of streets the whole sidewalk could have been obstructed by barriers. The fact is that it was not so obstructed, and we are of opinion that the judge at the trial rightly ruled that the barriers obstructed only so much of the sidewalk as was within a line drawn from the tree to the telegraph pole. The case differs widely in its facts from Jones v Collins, 177 Mass. 444, 56 N.E. 64, and Compton v Revere, 179 Mass. 413, 60 N.E. 931. The sidewalk outside of the line between the tree and the pole was apparently open for travel. There was evidence in the case that there were no repairs being made on the sidewalk, and that it was not torn up.
The principal question argued by the defendant is that the plaintiff was not in the exercise of due care. The evidence was that after passing the tree the plaintiff walked right along, and the first thing she knew she stumbled and fell. On cross-examination she testified that she walked straight along; that she thought it was all right, because she did not see any light--meaning, we presume, that there was no light between the two barriers to indicate any obstruction. The evidence given by the plaintiff on which the defendant relies is to the effect that when she saw the lantern at the tree she did not stop to look whether everything was all right. We are of opinion that the question was for the jury, on all the evidence, whether the...
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