Case ID: pa_223/html/0507-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Klein, Appellant, v. Philadelphia.
    
      Negligence — Municipality—Wharf—Infant.
    Where a boy eight years of age falls into a river while playing on a wharf at the end of a street, and is drowned, the parents of the boy cannot recover from the municipality for his death, by merely showing the defective condition of the wharf, if they offer no evidence that the accident happened from want of repair of the wharf.
    Argued Jan. 4, 1909.
    Appeal, No. 114, Jan. T., 1908, by plaintiff, from order of C. P. No. 5, Phila. Co., June T., 1906, No. 4,311, refusing to take off nonsuit in case of Herman G. Klein and Johanna E. Klein v. City of Philadelphia.
    Before Mitchell, C. J., Fell, Brown, Mestrezat, Potter, Elicin and Stewart, JJ.
    Affirmed.
    Trespass to recover damages for the death of a boy eight years old. Before Ralston, J.
    
      Error assigned was refusal to take off nonsuit.
    
      John H. Fow and F. Carroll Fow, for appellants.
    
      Robert Brannan, assistant city solicitor, with him Frederick Beyer, assistant city solicitor, and J. Howard Gendell, city solicitor, for appellee.
    March 1, 1909:
   Per Curiam,

The plaintiff’s son, eight years old, while playing with a companion of about the same age on a wharf constructed at the end of a street, fell into the Delaware river and was drowned. He had thrown hoops into the river and was standing either on the outer edge of the wharf or on a log that extended out over the water trying to reach the hoops with a stick, when he fell. There was evidence that the wharf was not in good condition, that the logs at the bulkhead had become decayed, and that the earth back of them had to some extent been washed away. But there was no evidence that the accident resulted from want of repair. The case made out by the plaintiff’s testimony imposed no liability on the city and a nonsuit was properly entered.

The judgment is affirmed.