The City of Champaign v. Patterson

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BREESE
• Citation: The City of Champaign v. Patterson, 50 Ill. 61, 1869 WL 5170 (Ill. 1869)
• Decision Date: 31 January 1869
• Parties: THE CITY OF CHAMPAIGNv.ELIAS C. PATTERSON.

50 Ill. 61

1869 WL 5170 (Ill.)

THE CITY OF CHAMPAIGN

v.ELIAS C. PATTERSON.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

January Term, 1869.

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

WRIT OF ERROR to the Circuit Court of Champaign county; the Hon. A. J. GALLAGHER, Judge, presiding.

The opinion states the case.

Mr. J. S. LOTHROP, for the plaintiff in error.

Messrs. COLER & SMITH, for the defendant in error.

Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE BREESE delivered the opinion of the Court:

This was an action on the case, brought to the Champaign Circuit Court by Elias C. Patterson, against the city of Champaign, to recover damages for an injury alleged to have been received by the plaintiff by reason of a defective sidewalk.

The jury found for the plaintiff, and assessed his damages at twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars. A motion for a new trial was made by the defendant which was overruled, and judgment entered on the verdict.

To reverse this judgment the defendant brings the record here by writ of error, assigning thereon various errors. The declaration alleges a duty imposed upon the city authorities, by law, to keep the sidewalk in a safe condition for pedestrians, and to attach and connect the sidewalk with the street crossing, at a safe and secure place, and in a safe and secure manner. The averment is that the defendant did not regard this duty, but, on the contrary, constructed the sidewalk in a dangerous place, and in an insecure and unsafe manner, and permitted the sidewalk and street crossing to become full of holes and “irregularities,” and uneven in width and hight, and at a great and dangerous elevation from the ground, and permitted it to be otherwise in a dangerous and unsafe condition, of all which the city authorities had notice.

Much testimony was heard upon the trial, and in some degree conflicting. Not having been favored with a diagram of the precise locality of the accident, determining from the evidence alone, unaided by a diagram, we are of opinion with the jury, the sidewalk in question would be dangerous to a pedestrian in the night, and it was in the night the plaintiff was passing over it.

Some objections were made by the defendant below on the trial, and saved by exceptions, which we will notice.

It was objected that the court should not permit evidence of the manner in which other street crossings distant from the place in controversy, in the same city, were constructed and kept in repair.

The principal controversy was, whether this particular crossing was or not, a public crossing. It appears the crossing, so called, was, in fact, the plank covering of a drain which did not connect, by a direct line, with the sidewalk. The evidence was introduced to show that other public crossings were of the same character, the coverings of drains or sewers. This was the sole object of the testimony, and its effect was restrained by the court by this instruction given on behalf of the plaintiff: “The court instructs the jury that, in order to constitute the walk across the street, at the place where it is alleged the injury occurred, a public street crossing, it is not necessary that there should be a record of it, nor is it necessary that it should have been publicly declared a street crossing by the defendant, or by the officers of the city of Champaign. But, if the jury shall find from the evidence that the crossing in controversy is, or was constructed in the same manner as other public street crossings, and at the crossing of a street in the same way as other public street crossings in the immediate vicinity of the one in controversy, and that the crossing was attached to the sidewalk, and with approaches from the sidewalk, if built by the city or its officers, and that such crossing was so connected with the sidewalk as to induce the public, and especially the plaintiff, to believe, in the exercise of ordinary judgment, that it was a public crossing, then all these things, if shown by the evidence, may be taken into consideration by the jury in determining whether it was a public street crossing or not.”

The attention of the jury, in several of the instructions given, was strictly confined to the condition of this sidewalk, and...