Steele v. City of Boston

• Decision Date: 25 June 1880
• Citation: 128 Mass. 583
• Parties: Azel E. Steele v. City of Boston
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

128 Mass. 583

Azel E. Steele v. City of Boston

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

June 25, 1880

Suffolk. Tort for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by being struck by a sled on Boston Common. Answer, a general denial. At the trial in this court, before Soule, J., the plaintiff offered to prove the following facts:

The defendant, from time immemorial, has owned a tract of land enclosed by fences and used as a place of public resort for the recreation of the people, and known as Boston Common. This common is traversed by divers footpaths, leading in different directions, which have been made and kept in repair by the defendant, and to which access is gained from the streets through openings in the fence, in which posts are set so near together that only passengers on foot can pass between them. One of these paths extends from a point near the intersection of Park Street and Beacon Street to a point nearly opposite the intersection of Tremont Street and West Street, on a downward grade for a considerable part of its length. Before the plaintiff was injured, the defendant had permitted boys and young men to coast on and along this path on sleds, and had fitted the path for such coasting by building a bridge across it at an intersecting path, and by turning water from the defendant's water-pipes upon it to freeze and render it slippery. The defendant had also kept a police-officer at the lower end of the path to prevent people from walking on it up the hill toward Park Street. On February 15, 1875, the plaintiff, having occasion to go toward West Street, entered on this path, having first looked up and down it to see if any one was coming, and, seeing no one, for greater security stepped out of the path upon the gutter which runs beside it. As he was walking down the hill a sled came down behind him, struck him behind the ankle, and knocked him down, and he received the injuries complained of.

The judge ruled that the above facts, if proved, would not sustain the action; ordered a verdict for the defendant; and at the request of both parties, reported the case for the consideration of the full court. If the ruling was correct judgment was to be entered on the verdict; otherwise, a new trial to be had.

Judgment for the defendant.

B. F Butler, for the plaintiff.

J. P. Healy & J. Healy, for the defendant.

OPINION

Morton, J.

The presiding justice rightly ruled that, upon the plaintiff...