Case Title: Haugen v. City of Grand Forks

Citation: 187 N.W.2d 68

Docket Number: 

State: north-dakota

Court: North Dakota Supreme Court

Date: 1971-05-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
187 N.W.2d 68 (1971) Elsie HAUGEN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CITY OF GRAND FORKS, Defendant and Respondent. Civ. No. 8704. Supreme Court of North Dakota. May 14, 1971. O'Grady & Edwards, Grand Forks, for plaintiff-appellant. Caldis & Arneson, Grand Forks, for defendant-respondent. *69 ERICKSTAD, Judge. The plaintiff Elsie Haugen appeals from the judgment of the district court of Grand Forks County which dismissed the plaintiff's action notwithstanding the verdict of the jury in favor of the plaintiff. The pertinent allegations of her amended complaint, dated March 3, 1969, follow: The City of Grand Forks, in its amended answer dated March 3, 1969, in effect generally denied the pertinent allegations of the amended complaint and asserted the affirmative defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of the risk, which defenses we need not consider, as the same were dismissed by the court prior to submission of the case to the jury, and there has been no appeal by the City from the dismissal of those affirmative defenses. It should be noted that prior to entering the judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the court, on the 6th of March, 1969, ordered judgment for Mrs. Haugen in the amount of the verdict, which was $1850 less the $700 paid by the owner of the premises at 16 South Third Street for a covenant not to sue. The facts pertinent to this lawsuit may be stated briefly. Police Officer Clarence Mack, in walking his beat on the 17th of January, 1967, observed an accumulation of ice and snow on the sidewalk in front of the 88-Cent Store situated at 16 South Third Street in Grand Forks, North Dakota. On February 7, 1967, Mrs. Haugen, while walking from her home to work, slipped on ice and snow which had accumulated on the sidewalk in front of the 88-Cent Store, the ice and snow being slippery and rough. As a result of her fall, she suffered a broken wrist. Charts disclosing temperature, precipitation, and wind and sky conditions for a period extending from January 1 through February 28 were introduced by the plaintiff through Duane Younggren, the Director of the University of North Dakota Weather Station. These charts and his testimony indicated that from January 16 to February 2 the temperature was not above freezing and that from February 2 through February 7 the temperature was above freezing only twice. It varied from a maximum of 39 degrees to a minimum of 5 degrees, with an average of 22 degrees, on February 3, and from a maximum of 34 degrees to a minus-1 degree, with an average of 16.5 degrees, on February 4. Approximately one foot of snow fell during the interim between the 16th of January and the 7th of February, with .3 of an inch of precipitation on February 4. When Officer Mack was shown photographs of the accumulation of snow and ice taken on the 8th of February, which is the day following Mrs. Haugen's fall, he testified that the photographs showed conditions "very similar" to the conditions which he witnessed on January 17. Mr. Berg, the owner of the 88-Cent Store building, testified that he had a University student remove the snow on the sidewalk in front of the store sometime during the month of January, but didn't know on what date. Especially pertinent is the answer Mr. Berg gave to the question of whether he supervised the removal of the snow or not. *71 Raymond H. Corbett, the Street and Sanitation Superintendent, testified that he did not recall and had no record of any report concerning accumulation of snow on the sidewalk at 16 South Third Street, but that he had 165 miles of sidewalks to watch over. Chief of Police Duane Knutson testified that he had received no reports concerning the accumulation of ice and snow on the sidewalk in front of the building situated at 16 South Third Street during the period in question. He said, however, that he did examine the accumulation of snow and ice on the 8th of February, with the attorney for the plaintiff, and conceded that it "definitely had been there a while." In light of these facts, we think it pertinent to note the trial judge's basis for granting the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict as indicated by his memorandum decision, a part of which follows: The statute which the trial court had in mind and which is pertinent to this lawsuit reads: We have an appeal from a judgment based upon an order granting a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Most appeals are from judgments based upon orders denying, rather than from orders granting, a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, but the rule we apply is the same. In considering whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict, it must be considered in the light most favorable to the party in whose favor the verdict was rendered. Lee v. AAA North Dakota Automobile Club, 68 N.W.2d 835, 837 (N.D. 1955); Long v. People's Department Store, 74 N.W.2d 80, 90 (N.D.1955); Chicago, M. St. P. & P. R. Co. v. Johnston's Fuel Liners, 122 N.W.2d 140, 146 (N.D.1963). What we said in Lee is applicable here. The transcript of the trial indicates that counsel for the City moved under Rule 58 at the close of all the evidence for a directed verdict in favor of the City. We deem the reference to Rule 58 to be a mere stenographical error and treat the motion as one made under Rule 50 of the North Dakota Rules of Civil Procedure. The pertinent parts of that rule read: The essence of the City's motion for a directed verdict is that Mrs. Haugen failed to show any basis upon which relief could be granted to her, in that she failed to prove that actual notice of the alleged defective, unsafe, or dangerous condition of the sidewalk was possessed by the executive officer, governing body, police officer, or marshal forty-eight hours previous to the injuries complained of. From the evidence, which we have attempted to summarize, we conclude that there were fact questions for the jury to determine, and, accordingly, that the case was properly one for the jury to decide. Applying the rule that the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, we further conclude that the evidence supports the verdict. An overly restrictive view of the statute was taken by the trial court when it required that the "very same" compacted snow and ice be present on the sidewalk at the time of the injury as existed twenty-one days prior thereto. Once actual notice of the accumulation of ice and snow was proved, the jury was free to decide whether the snow and ice were present at the time and on the date of the accident in such form as to be the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries. Giving the statute a reasonable construction the plaintiff was not required to prove that the City had knowledge of the accumulation of ice and snow in the exact form in which it existed at the moment of the plaintiff's injury. That certain facts may be inferred from other facts, even in this case, which is subject to the application of § 40-42-05, N.D. C.C., which prohibits the presumption of actual knowledge of the accumulation of ice and snow from the conditions on the date of the injury, is consistent with the instructions the trial court gave the jury. Although we cannot say that the instructions are the law of the case as the record does not disclose that they were submitted for approval or objection of counsel prior to being submitted to the jury, they seem to express a view contrary to the court's order. Believing that the court was right in its instructions, we vacate the judgment notwithstanding the verdict and remand the case for a reinstatement of the verdict less the setoff of $700 and order judgment in conformity thereto. STRUTZ, C. J., and TEIGEN, KNUDSON and PAULSON, JJ., concur.