Privitt v. Jewett

• Decision Date: 08 November 1920
• Docket Number: Mo. 13555.
• Citation: 225 S.W. 127
• Parties: PRIVITT v. JEWETT et al.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

225 S.W. 127

PRIVITT v. JEWETT et al.

Mo. 13555.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

November 8, 1920.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Sullivan County; Fred Lamb, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by Clarence Privitt against Noel Jewett and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal. Affirmed.

John W. Clapp, of Milan, and J. C. Wilson, of Bethany, for appellants.

Calfee & Painter, of Milan, and Hubbell Bros., of Trenton, for respondent.

TRIMBLE, J.

Plaintiff, a pedestrian, was proceeding east along the sidewalk on the north side of a public street in the town of Osgood, Mo., when the wall of a brick building then in process of erection and abutting the sidewalk on the north fell upon and injured him. This suit was brought to recover damages from the owners of the building on account of their negligence in permitting the wall to fall, in falling to protect persons using the sidewalk, in failing to erect guards and harriers to prevent people from walking on said sidewalk adjacent to said building while same was being erected, and in failing to properly warn plaintiff and the public using said sidewalk. A trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in plaintiff's favor for $2,500, from which defendants have appealed.

Osgood is a town of 200 or 300 inhabitants. The building being erected was located at the southwest corner of the block and fronted south on Main street, and immediately adjoined the sidewalk. The building was to constitute two storerooms running north and south, the west one of which was to be two stories in height, and the east room only one story high, but the front or south wall of this room was being built up as high as the front on the two-story room for the sake of appearances. At the time of the injury the bricks of the west storeroom had been laid to the top of the building, and the south wall above the first floor of the east room, or, in other words, the "false front" thereof, was being built. The sidewalk running east in front of the building was of cement and a little over 7 feet in width. There was a platform, made of lumber laid on wooden horses, alongside of and next to the building. This platform, however, was not a covering for the sidewalk. Bricks were taken from the ground and placed on this scaffold, and from thence were handed up to the workmen engaged on the building. The scaffold did not extend out over the full width of the sidewalk, but left a space of a foot and a half or two feet wide on the outside portion of the sidewalk, extending thereon for a distance of 16 or 18 feet, the length of the lumber forming the scaffold, and for the rest of the distance in front of the building the sidewalk was unobstructed and open to its full width. There was some brick and possibly some lumber piled in the street out a short distance from the sidewalk, but this was in front rather of the two-story storeroom and did not extend on to the full width of the other room front. There were no guards or barriers put up to keep people from walking on the sidewalk at the place in question, or to warn them not to walk there. The building was in the main business part of town; the stores, bank, and restaurant being in the immediate locality. People passed along on the sidewalk in front of the building with nothing to hinder or obstruct them any more than what has been stated, and this was nothing to impede their passage along the outside foot and a half or two feet of space above mentioned. This use of the sidewalk by the public...