Case Name: Alfred Austin, Respondent, v. City of Dunkirk, Appellant
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1910-07-12
Citations: 140 A.D. 44
Docket Number: 
Parties: Alfred Austin, Respondent, v. City of Dunkirk, Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 140
Pages: 44–49

Head Matter:
Alfred Austin, Respondent, v. City of Dunkirk, Appellant.
Fourth Department,
July 12, 1910.
Municipal corporations —negligence — fall on slippery sidewalk—facts not justifying recovery.
Action against a city to recover for personal injuries caused by a fall upon a sidewalk. It appeared that the sidewalk had been constructed by. the municipal authorities of a material which left the surface smooth as glass. At the time of the accident the sidewalk was covered with a light fall of snow.
Held, that a judgment for the plaintiff shouhl.be reversed.
(Per McLennan, P. J., and Williams, J.): The construction of the sidewalk was a judicial act on the part of the city for which it is not liable.
Kobson and Kruse, JJ., dissented, with opinion.
Appeal by the defendant, the City of Dunkirk, from"a judgment of the Comity Court of Chautauqua county in favor of the plaintiff, entered in the office of the clerk of said county on the 14th day of December 1909, upon the verdict of a jury for $800, and also from an order entered in said clerk’s office on the 20th day of November, 1909, denying the defendant’s motion for a new trial made upon the minutes.
The action was commenced on the 22d day of June, 1909, to recover damages for injuries sustained by the plaintiff alleged to have been caused solely through the negligence of the defendant.
Thomas P. Heffernan, for the appellant.
Nelson J. Palmer, for the respondent.

Opinion:
McLennan, P. J.:
As appears by the uncontradicted evidence in this case, the defendant caused or authorized to be constructed a sidewalk in one of the principal streets of the defendant city which was slippery and the surface of which was as smooth as glass. Such sidewalk was built under the direction of the defendant's street commissioner about two years prior to the accident, and there is no question but that the sidewalk as constructed by the defendant or under its direction was slippery in the extreme. The plaintiff was passing over this walk in the darkness of an early January morning on his way to work. There had been a light fall of snow during the night preceding and the walk was covered with it.
The court charged the jury that if the accident resulted from such covering of snow, no recovery could be had ; so that the only question presented by this. appeal is as to whether or not the defendant is liable because it caused to be constructed, or authorized the construction of a sidewalk on one of its principal streets so smooth upon the surface as to render it dangerous to pedestrians passing over the same.
It seems to me clear that the construction or authorization of th<> construction of such a sidewalk was a judicial act on the part ot the defendant for which it is not liable Practically the same question was decided by this court in the ease of Ellison v. City of Auburn (117 App. Div. 918), aud it was held that for such condition the defendant was not liable.
It seems to me that the submission of defendant's liability to the jury under the facts in this case was error, and that a nonsuit should have been granted.
It follows that the judgment and order appealed from should be reversed and a new trial granted, with costs to the appellant to abide the event.
Williams, J., concurred; Spring, J., concurred in result; Kruse and Robson, JJ., dissented in an opinion by Robson, J.