Miller v. City of St. Paul

• Decision Date: 27 January 1888
• Citation: 38 Minn. 134
• Parties: ALICE MILLER <I>vs.</I> CITY OF ST. PAUL.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

38 Minn. 134

ALICE MILLER vs. CITY OF ST. PAUL.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

January 27, 1888.

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for Ramsey county, Kelly, J., presiding, refusing a new trial, after a verdict of $1,250 for plaintiff.

W. P. Murray and T. D. O'Brien, for appellant.

Davis, Kellogg & Severance, for respondent.

MITCHELL, J.

This was an action to recover for personal injuries caused by the alleged defective and unsafe condition of a sidewalk. At the time of the accident, Decatur street had been graded to the point of its intersection with Preble street, but no further, while Preble street had not been graded at all. Along the graded part of Decatur street a sidewalk had been built, which was some 14 inches higher than the natural surface of the ground at the crossing of Preble and Decatur. A step had been constructed at the end of the walk, about half way between the walk and the ground; the distance from the walk to the step, and from the step to the ground, being each from six and one-half to seven inches. This step had been built in the spring of 1885. On the night of October 1, 1885, the plaintiff, in company with her husband, was walking along this sidewalk, and coming to the end of it at the crossing, when her foot touched the step, it, being loose, "gave," and she fell, and sustained the injuries complained of. As she did not know of the existence of the step, the night being dark and the street unlighted, of course she might have fallen, even if the step had been fast; but all the evidence tends strongly to show that it was the looseness of the step which caused the accident.

The existence of a step at this place, if in proper repair, would be no defect, so as to render the city liable for accidents to pedestrians stepping from the sidewalk on to the street crossing. In any city, and especially in one growing rapidly, where the streets and sidewalks cannot all be put at once on a uniform grade, it may and often must happen that the manner of constructing a sidewalk must be controlled by the necessities of the situation. A step or steps from the walk to the street crossing may, on the whole, be the most suitable plan of which the case will admit. Pedestrians must expect and be on the lookout for steps when they reach a street crossing. This case is not, in this respect, at all like that of Tabor v. City of St. Paul, 36 Minn. 188, (30 N. W. Rep. 765.) We think the evidence is uncontradicted that this step was properly constructed when put down, being a plank, 12 inches wide, spiked on to stringers, which in turn were spiked to the...