Lilly v. Town of Woodstock

• Decision Date: 10 July 1890
• Citation: 22 A. 40,59 Conn. 219
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: LILLY v. TOWN OF WOODSTOCK.

22 A. 40

59 Conn. 219

LILLY

v. TOWN OF WOODSTOCK.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 10, 1890.

Appeal from superior court, Windham county; Prentice, Judge.

Action by Isaac Lilly against the town of Woodstock. A demurrer to the complaint was sustained, and plaintiff appeals. Gen. St. Conn. § 2673 provides that no action for an injury to person or property by means of a defective road shall be maintained against any town "unless written notice of such injury, and of the nature and cause thereof, and of the time and place of its occurrence," shall within 60 days be given to a selectman of the town.

J. H. Potter, for appellant.

C. E. Searls, for appellee.

SEYMOUR, J. This is an action to recover for injuries to person and property, occasioned by the defendant's defective highway. The plaintiff annexed to and made a part of his complaint the written notice which, under "section 2673 of the General Statutes, he gave to the defendant's selectman. The defendant demurred to the complaint on the ground that the notice is insufficient, in that it does not properly set forth the injury, and the nature and cause thereof, and the time and place of its occurrence, in manner and form as required by the statute. The superior court sustained the demurrer, and the plaintiff took his appeal to this court. On the argument it was not claimed by the defendant that the place where the accident occurred was not sufficiently described in the notice. But it was strenuously urged that the time when it occurred, and the nature and cause of the injury, were not properly set forth. The notice was as follows, omitting the particular description of the place where the accident happened, no question arising upon that point: "To Harris May, a selectman of the town of Woodstock: On the 3d day of December, 1888, I, Isaac Lilly, of the town of Putnam, county of Windham, and state of Connecticut, was injured in my person and property by means of a defective road in said town of Woodstock, * * * the nature of said injuries being the breaking and destruction of my carriage, and the bruising, wounding, and laming of my person; all said injuries caused by said defective road, the defect consisting of a dangerous embankment. Dated at Putnam, this 26th day of December, 1888. Isaac Lilly. By J. H. Potter, his Attorney." The questions before us arise upon those parts of the notice which undertake to give the time, the nature, and the cause of the injury. Before 1874 it was not necessary for a person injured by means of a defective road or bridge to give notice to the defendant before bringing suit to recover damages. In that year a statute was passed requiring written notice of such injury, and of the time and place of its occurrence, as nearly as it could be ascertained, to be given within 60 days thereafter. In 1883 that statute was amended by requiring that the nature and, cause of the injury should also be stated in the notice, and it was under the amended statute, as contained in the General Statutes, that the notice in this suit was given.

Since the statute was passed this court has several times been called upon to construe its provisions. In Shaw v. City of Waterbury, 46 Conn. 263, in considering the statutory requirement that the time and place of the occurrence shall be given in the notice, the court says: "The obvious purpose of this requirement is that officers of municipal corporations against which suits for injuries are about to be instituted shall have such precise information as to the time and place as will enable them to inquire into the facts of the case intelligently. The court instructed the jury that, if the accident occurred at any time between the 1st day of April and the last day of May, a notice stating that it happened on the 16th day of April was sufficiently precise; in effect declaring that a variation of forty days was immaterial. This is not a statement of the time of the occurrence of the injury within the true intendment and meaning of the statute; Indeed, it is simply to nullify it. "In Brown v. Town of Southbury, 53 Conn. 212, 1 Atl. Bep. 819,—an action brought after the passage of the act of 1883,—this court, in considering the scope of the requirement that the notice shall give the nature of the injury and the place of its occurrence...