Russo v. City of Pueblo

• Decision Date: 05 November 1917
• Docket Number: 8604.
• Citation: 168 P. 649,63 Colo. 519
• Parties: RUSSO v. CITY OF PUEBLO.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

168 P. 649

63 Colo. 519

RUSSO v. CITY OF PUEBLO.

No. 8604.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

November 5, 1917

Error to District Court, Pueblo County; C. S. Essex, Judge.

Action by Louis Russo against the City of Pueblo. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error. Reversed.

M. J Galligan, of Pueblo, for plaintiff in error.

Alva B Adams and Charles M. Rose, both of Pueblo, for defendant in error.

ALLEN J.

This is an action brought by the owner of a lot in the city of Pueblo to recover from the city, the defendant below, damages for the act of the city in depriving plaintiff of a sidewalk, the right to maintain which the plaintiff derived from a contract entered into by the city and a former owner of the lot. The trial court sustained a general demurrer to the amended complaint. The plaintiff elected to stand upon the amended complaint, and thereupon the court rendered final judgment, dismissing the action. The sustaining of the demurrer is assigned as error.

Taking the allegations of the complaint as true, it appears that plaintiff is the owner of a lot which fronts on Union avenue a public street in Pueblo, and that the lot borders on the bank of the Arkansas river which crosses Union avenue. The complaint alleges, among other things, that on January 26, 1897, a contract was entered into between one Leonard Russo, then the owner of the lot, and the city of Pueblo, under the terms of which it was agreed that Russo 'shall have the right to build and construct, at his own expense, a sidewalk along said levee wall the entire length of said lot.' The levee wall ran along the Arkansas river and the edge of Russo's property. The complaint shows that the sidewalk was constructed, pursuant to the contract, and connected with Union avenue, and thereafter served the usual and ordinary purposes of a 'sidewalk' as that term is generally understood.

The complaint alleges that the sidewalk continued to connect with Union avenue until April, 1911, a period of 14 years, when the city built a new bridge across the Arkansas river on Union avenue and cut off the sidewalk from Union avenue by means of extending the bridge railing across the entire end of the sidewalk. The complaint shows that Leonard Russo erected a building on the lot, with several apartments, each of which fronted on the sidewalk mentioned in the contract and constructed pursuant thereto. The plaintiff purchased the premises in ...