McComb v. City of Chicago
| Citation | 263 Ill. 510,105 N.E. 294 |
| Decision Date | 04 June 1914 |
| Docket Number | No. 9326.,9326. |
| Parties | McCOMB v. CITY OF CHICAGO. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Illinois |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Branch D, Appellate Court, First District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, Cook County; Thomas G. Windes, Judge.
Action by William McComb against the City of Chicago. From a judgment of the Appellate Court affirming a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Affirmed.
William H. Sexton, Corp. Counsel, and N. L. Piotrowski, City Atty., both of Chicago (David R. Levy, of Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.
James A. Russell, of Elgin, and Mills & Holly, for appellee.
Appellee, as plaintiff, in the circuit court of Cook county recovered a judgment against appellant, as defendant, for $3,000 damages for personal injuries received by a fall on a defective sidewalk. Defendant appealed to the Appellate Court for the First District. The judgment was affirmed by Branch D of that court and a certificate of importance granted, upon which this appeal was prosecuted to this court.
The only question raised for our consideration is the sufficiency of the notice given by plaintiff to defendant of the time and place of the accident.
Section 2 of the act of 1905 (Laws of 1905, p. 111) requires a person who is about to bring an action against an incorporated city, village, or town for damages on account of any personal injury, to file in the office of the city attorney, if there is one, and also in the office of the city clerk, within six months of the date of the injury, a statement in writing signed by the party injured, his agent or attorney, giving the name of the person to whom the cause of action has accrued, the name and residence of the person injured, the date and about the hour of the accident, the place or location where the accident occurred, and the name and address of the attending physician, if any. By section 3 it is provided that, if the notice shall not be given as required by section 2, any suit brought against the municipality shall be dismissed and the cause of action forever barred.
The plaintiff was injured January 29, 1910, at about 5:30 o'clock p. m., while walking east on the south side of Thirty-Ninth street where it crosses Campbell avenue. He had crossed Campbell avenue on the sidewalk used by pedestrians, and as he passed over the curb to the sidewalk at the southeast corner of Campbell avenue and Thirty-Ninth street he fell in consequence of a hole or depression in the sidewalk, breaking his leg. Within six months of the date of the injury he filed a notice in the office of the city attorney and city clerk of the city of Chicago, in which he gave his name and residence and stated he had ‘sustained injuries to his person by being injured at or near the corner of Thirty-Ninth street and Campbell avenue, in said city of Chicago, on, to wit, the 29th day of January, A. D. 1910, at about 5:30 p. m. in the afternoon of said day.’ The notice further stated that he (plaintiff) was taken in charge by the police of the city of Chicago and removed in a patrol wagon to the Cook County Hospital and placed in ward 9 therein. He was unable to give the name of the physician who treated him. He stated in the notice that he claimed damages against the city of Chicago on account of the injuries received.
It will be observed the notice stated the injury received by plaintiff was ‘at or near the corner of Thirty-Ninth street and Campbell avenue.’ It does not specifically state which corner, and appellant insists the notice is too uncertain and indefinite as to the place of the accident to be a substantial compliance with the statute. It must be admitted that in this respect the notice was crudely and carelessly prepared; but if, considering the whole notice together, it gives sufficient information to the city authorities to enable them, by the exercise of reasonable intelligence and diligence, to locate the place of the injury and ascertain the conditions alleged to have existed which caused it, it is sufficient, according to the weight of the authorities, to serve the purpose for which it was required by the statute to be given. No particular form of notice is required by the statute. Statutes similar to ours are in force in many states of the Union, and the sufficiency of notices given under such statutes as to the place of the injury has frequently been passed upon by the courts of other states. In Ellis v. City of Seattle, 47 Wash. 578, 92 Pac. 431, the notice stated the injury occurred by plaintiff driving in a hole on the west side of a street. The proof showed the hole was on the east side of...
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Stone v. District of Columbia
...City of New York, 250 N.Y. 332, 165 N.E. 517 (1929); Benson v. City of Madison, 101 Wis. 312, 77 N.W. 161 (1898); McComb v. City of Chicago, 263 Ill. 510, 105 N.E. 294 (1914); Keller v. Tomaska, 299 Ill. App. 34, 19 N.E.2d 442 (1939); Johnson v. City of Chisholm, 222 Minn. 179, 24 N.W.2d 23......
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Zameer v. City of Chi.
...diligence, to locate the place of the injury and ascertain conditions alleged to have existed which caused it.” McComb v. City of Chicago, 263 Ill. 510, 512, 105 N.E. 294 (1914). Therefore, plaintiff argues there is sufficient circumstantial evidence of actual notice. We disagree. First, th......
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City of East Chicago v. Gilbert
...also, City v. Perkins, 50 Colo. 159, 114 Pac. 484; Pearll v. Bay City, supra; Johnson v. City, 15 N. D. 525, 108 N. W. 243;McComb v. City, 263 Ill. 510, 105 N. E. 294. “If the statement so designates the place that the officers of the town, being men of common understanding and intelligence......
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Minnis v. Friend
...it did not occur. Gardner v. New London, 63 Conn. 267, 28 A. 42,’ and other cases. Appellee relies upon the case of McComb v. City of Chicago, 263 Ill. 510, 105 N. E. 294. There we held a notice gave a sufficient description of the place or location of the accident when it stated that it oc......