Case ID: ill-app_205/html/0283-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Anna Richert, Administratrix, Appellee, v. Village of Niles, Appellant.
    Gen. No. 22,805.
    (Not to he reported in full.)
    Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook county; the Hon. Richabd S. Turran, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the October term, 1916.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed April 16, 1917.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by Anna Bichert, administratrix of the estate of Albert Bichert, deceased, plaintiff, against the Village of Niles, defendant, to recover for the death of Albert Bichert, alleged to have been due to the negligence of defendant in knowingly permitting a certain public highway to be in an unsafe condition of repair so that it was not safe for public travel. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals.
    Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Municipal corporations, § 1098
      
      —when evidence sufficient to show that hoy did not jump off wagon. In an action against a village to recover for the death of a boy fifteen years old caused by-being thrown from a wagon which was being driven by another person along a public road on a dark night, where the front wheel of the wagon went down into a hole up to the axle, followed by the hind wheel, and it was claimed that the boy jumped off, and no one saw him the instant he went off the wagon, but the driver of the wagon stated that he saw a lantern which the boy held fall down in front of the wagon and go out, and that the hoy apparently fell off the seat, and stopped his team and got down and found the boy lying on the street in an apparently lifeless condition, evidence held sufficient to show that the boy was thrown off or fell off the wagon, and that he did not jump off it.
    2. Municipal corporations, § 1098*—when evidence sufficient to show negligence in allowing hole to exist in road. In an action against a village, to recover for the death of a boy caused by his being thrown from a wagon as the result of the wheels going down into a hole in a public road on a dark night, held that testimony showing that such hole had been in the street for about a month, and that accidents had happened at the same hole before the accident in question, constituted sufficient proof of negligence.
    3. Municipal corporations, § 1089*—what evidence admissible to show condition of road after accident. Where, in an action against a village to recover for the death of a boy caused by his being thrown from a wagon as the result of the wheels going ¿own into a hole in a public road on a dark night, the defendant claimed that it was error to permit evidence as to the filling up of the hole very shortly after the accident, and where it appeared that the witnesses who gave such testimony had been sent for the purpose of filling the hole, and had testified as to its location and sizei, held that such evidence was proper to prove conditions immediately or shortly after the accident in question.
    
      Theodore A. Kolb, for appellant; Francis X. Busch, of counsel.
    Irwin R. Hazen and Le Roy V. Penwell, for appellee.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Presiding Justice McSurely

delivered the opinion of the court.