Sheehan v. City of Boston
| Decision Date | 20 May 1898 |
| Citation | 50 N.E. 543,171 Mass. 296 |
| Parties | SHEEHAN et al. v. CITY OF BOSTON. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
H.J. Jaquith and
W.R. Bigelow, for plaintiffs.
S.H. Hudson, for defendant.
These are actions of tort for personal injuries suffered by falling into a trench in the Public Garden in Boston. The plaintiffs had been sitting upon a movable settee which they found upon the grass, a little way from the path, in the neighborhood of an arbor near the corner of Boylston and Arlington streets. They had risen, and were walking across the grass towards the Newbury street exit from the garden, when, before they reached a path, they fell into the trench. This trench had been dug by the city for the laying of water pipes, and was some 10 feet deep, and was not guarded. The ordinances of the city forbade walking on the grass, and the public were warned by signs to keep off it, as the plaintiffs knew. The judge before whom the case was tried directed verdicts for the defendant, and the plaintiffs excepted.
The ruling, plainly, was right. The plaintiffs were obliged to show their own breach of the law in order to recover ( Tuttle v. Lawrence, 119 Mass. 276; Arey v. City of Newton, 148 Mass. 598, 20 N.E. 327; Breuck v. City of Holyoke, 167 Mass. 258, 45 N.E. 732), and to show that they were in a place where they not only were not invited, but were forbidden to be, and where, therefore, the defendant was not bound to expect them, or to make provisions for their safety. The presence of movable seats upon the grass did not repeal the ordinance, or enlarge the rights of the plaintiffs or the liabilities of the defendant. As every one knows, the most probable explanation was that the seats had been put there by members of the public at their own risk.
Exceptions overruled.
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