Lowe v. Inhabitants of Clinton
| Decision Date | 29 November 1882 |
| Citation | 133 Mass. 526 |
| Parties | Louisa A. Lowe v. Inhabitants of Clinton |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Worcester. Tort for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by an alleged defect in a highway in the defendant town. Trial in the Superior Court, before Knowlton, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows:
On the night of May 9, 1879, the plaintiff, while walking on the sidewalk, in the exercise of due care, on the east side of North Main Street in the defendant town, struck her foot against a pine stump, and was thrown down and injured.
On the 16th of that month, she gave a notice in writing to the town in which she stated that she, "while passing along and over that portion of North Main Street, in said Clinton lying between the residences of C. C. Stone and Ethan A Currier, was tripped up and thrown down, thereby causing a severe injury to her right knee," "and that the cause of her falling was a defect or want of repair in said street, to wit, a stump projecting four inches above the surface of the sidewalk on the east side of said street, between the residences aforesaid."
The plaintiff's evidence tended to show that there was a sidewalk on the east side of the street, which extended all the way between the houses of Stone and Currier; that the sidewalk was of natural soil, not finished with granite curbing, and was in some places six or seven feet wide, and in other places of less width, but was a walk for foot-passengers in constant use for years; that the houses of Stone and Currier were fifty rods apart, and on opposite sides of the street; that between these houses, on the east side of the street and nearer to Stone's than to Currier's, were the houses of one Creamer and of one Powell, and that there was a third house nearer to Currier's; that in the sidewalk, two and a half feet from the fence, between the houses of Creamer and Powell, was a hard-pine stump, about the size of a broomstick on top, which projected two and a half inches above the surface of the walk, and from this stump roots extended both easterly and westerly, which were distinctly traceable by the eye, and were worn by footsteps, but which were not materially above the level of the sidewalk; and that this was the only stump within the fifty rods of walk between the houses named in the notice.
When the plaintiff's evidence was put in, the judge, at the request of the defendant, ruled that the notice was defective in not setting forth the place of the accident with sufficient certainty; and directed a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff alleged exceptions.
Exceptions sustained.
W. S. B. Hopkins, (J. Smith with him,) for the plaintiff.
C. G. Stevens, for the defendant.
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Hackenyos v. City of St. Louis
...relied upon; and, if it was sufficient for this purpose, it was sufficient as a condition precedent to maintaining the action.' Lowe v. Clinton, 133 Mass. 526. The notice states, as the cause of the injury, a fall `consequent upon the icy and slippery condition of the said sidewalk.' It is ......
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Connor v. Salt Lake City
... ... City of Ft. Dodge ... (Iowa), 67 N.W. 281; Lyman v. Hampshire, 138 ... Mass. 74; Lowe v. Inhabitants of Clinton, 133 Mass ... 526; Brown v. City of Owosso (Mich.), 85 N.W. 256; ... ...
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City of Lincoln v. O'Brien
...There were three sluices across the highway in the space described, but only one was defective. This was held sufficient. In Lowe v. Clinton, 133 Mass. 526, the place was between two houses which were fifty rods apart and there were intervening houses, but there was also described as the ca......
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Fortin v. Inhabitants of Easthampton
...the liability of the town. Spellman v. Chicopee, 131 Mass. 443;Savory v. Haverhill, 132 Mass. 324; Bailey v. Everett, Id. 441; Lowe v. Clinton, 133 Mass. 526;Welch v. Gardner, Id. 529; Dalton v. Salem, 136 Mass. 278;Lyman v. Hampshire, 138 Mass. 74;Canterbury v. Boston, 141 Mass. 215; S.C. ......