Case Name: B. C. BEANE, Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. JOSEPH, and BRITTAIN INVESTMENT CO., Appellants
Court: Kansas City Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Missouri
Decision Date: 1922-05-01
Citations: 211 Mo. App. 200
Docket Number: 
Parties: B. C. BEANE, Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. JOSEPH, and BRITTAIN INVESTMENT CO., Appellants.
Judges: All concur. Trimble, P. J., in a separate opinion.
Reporter: Missouri Appeal Reports
Volume: 211
Pages: 200–214

Head Matter:
B. C. BEANE, Respondent, v. CITY OF ST. JOSEPH, and BRITTAIN INVESTMENT CO., Appellants.
In the Kansas City Court of Appeals,
May 1, 1922.
1. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS: Notice: Notice to City of Location of Place Where Personal Injury Resulted from Defective Street Held Sufficient. The obvious purpose of section 7955, Revised Statutes 1919, providing that notice in writing of injuries resulting from defects in streets shall be given within sixty days of the occurrence, is to protect the city from unjust claims for damages and in aid thereof to locate the place wnere the accident occurred and to describe the circumstances with sufficient definiteness to allow city to institute an investigation to determine whether it is liable, held, that a notice stating that accident occurred “alongside and near the rear of a building located on the corner fronting on F. Street and about 80 feet from South line of intersection of 5th Street with said F. Street” is sufficient, there being no material variance between the notice and the proof locating the place of the accident.
2. -: -: Pleading: Notice to City of Claim of Personal Injury Fully Advising City of AÍ1 Facts Connected With the Injury Held Sufficient. The statutory notice required under section 7955, Revised Statutes 1919, to be given city of a claim for personal injury is not in any sense a pleading and may not be strictly construed, and where evidence tends to show that the city was fully advised by such notice of all facts connected with the injury, within the meaning of the statute, none of the essentials being omitted nor insufficiently stated, the notice is sufficient.
ON BEHEAKING.
3. -: -: Jury Finding for Plaintiff Held in Effect a Finding. that Notice to City of Personal. Injury Properly Gave the Circumstances of the Injury. In a suit against a city for personal injuries received from falling, upon an icy sidewalk, where jury were required to find by an instruction that the ice was negligently permitted to be and remain on said sidewalk, and to freeze into raised and uneven ridges forming a dangerous obstruction to persons attempting to walk along said sidewalk, and the notice to the city of the injury stated that the ice was rough and had “unlevel surfaces in bumps and ridges,” held, jury by finding in favor of plaintiff in effect found that the notice properly gave the “circumstances” of the injury.
A --: -: Pleadinig: Where Cause of Action is Created by Common Law, it is Not Necessary in Action Against City to plead Notice of Injury as a Condition Precedent'to Maintenance Thereof. Section 7955, Revised Statute 1919, declaring that no action for personal injuries against a city may be maintained unless notice thereof is given within sixty days,- does not create a cause of action, but the cause of action is given by the common law, and as the cause of action is created by the common law, the condition as to service of notice is not a part of plaintiff’s cause of action and neither the notice nor the conditions need be pleaded in the petition.
5. INSTRUCTIONS: Burden of Proof: Contributory Negligence: An Instruction That Burden of Proof Rested Upon Defendants to Prove Plaintiff^ Guilty of Contributory Negligence Held not Error. In a suit against a city and another to recover damages for personal injuries received as result of fall upon an icy sidewalk, an instruction that the burden of proof rests upon defendants to prove plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence was not erroneous as excluding from jury the right of defendants to have it" find from evidence offered by plaintiff that he was guilty of contributory negligence.
6. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS: Instructions: Instructions as to Negligence of Property Owner in Permitting Water to Flow From Defective Guttering Upon Sidewalk and to Freeze and Form Dangerous Obstruction Held Proper. In an action against city and property owner for injuries resulting from fall on an icy sidewalk, an instruction that the jury must find that the water from the roof of property owner’s building, because of insufficient or defective guttering, drains or downspouts was negligently permitted to flow along and across the sidewalk, and to freeze into ice on said sidewalk, and that said ice was negligently permitted by defendants to remain in rough and uneven .ridges forming a dangerous obstruction, to hold property owner liable, held proper.
7. -: — : -: In Action Against City and Property Owner for Damages for Injuries an Instruction That if Property Owner Was , Not Negligent Verdict Should be Against City Alone, Held Not Erroneous. In a suit to recover damages for personal injuries against city and property owner resulting from fall upon icy sidewalk where it was alleged that because of insufficient and defective guttering, water was caused to flow upon sidewalk and permitted to freeze and from dangerous obstruction, an instruction that if jury found defendant property owner did not negligently permit said water to flow upon sidewalk, but that the other facts existed, their verdict should be against the city alone, held not erroneous.
8. -: Where Icy Obstruction Upon Sidewalk was Caused by Property Owner’s Negligence and City After Knowledge of Its Existence, Failed to Remove the Same, City is Liable to Pedestrian Injured Thereby. Both the city and property owner were liable if through fault or carelessness of the property owner the icy obstruction came into existence upon the sidewalk and the city after it knew, or by the exercise of ordinary care could have known, of the obstruction, carelessly failed to remove the same.
9. LANDORD AND TENANT: Landlord Not Liable for Injury Resulting From Fall Caused by Icy Obstruction Upon Sidewalk Where it Did Not Appear That Defective Guttering Existed at Time Landlord Leased or Rented Premises to Tenant, the Landlord Not Being Liable if Condition was Due to Negligence of Tenant. In an action against city and property owner by a pedestrian caused by icy obstruction upon sidewalk, where petition alleged that property owner was negligent in maintaining a defective and insufficient downspout or guttering upon building, causing water to flow upon sidewalk, there could be no recovery against property owner as the evidence did not show that the defect in the guttering and downspouts existed at the time the property owner leased or rented the premises to the tenant who was in possession "at the time of the injury, the property owner not being liable if the condition was due to negligence of tenant.
ON SECOND REHEARING.
10. APPEAL AND ERROR: Instructions: Where Evidence Tended to Show Defendant, Property Owner, Primarily Liable and Defendant, City, Secondarily Liable for Injuries to Pedestrian, an Erroneous Instruction as to property Owner Requires Reversal as to Both Defendants. In an action against city and property owner for injuries to pedestrian caused by fall as a result of icy obstruction upon sidewalk, under section 7954, Revised Statute 1919, the judgment should he reversed and the-cause remanded as to hoth defendants because reversible error was "committed in giving an instruction for plaintiff against the property owner as the evidence tends to show that the property owner is primarily liable and the city secondarily, that is, if the city is liable the property owner is liable to city for having negligently caused the condition ■ complained of.
Appeal' from the Circuit Court of Buchanan County.— Hon. Lawrence A. •Tories, Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Joseph M. Garvey and William E. Stringfellow for respondent.
Vinton Pike for appellant, Brittain Invest. Co.
Lindsay, Hess & Kavanaugh for appellant, City.

Opinion:
ARNOLD, J.
This is a suit in damages for personal injuries against the City of St. Joseph and the Brittain Investment Company, a corporation.
Plaintiff, a man sixty years of age, fell on ice on a sidewalk on the west side of Fifth street about eighty feet south of its intersection with Francis street. The petition alleges that "water from the roof and cornice of the building owned by defendant The Brittain Investment Company on the premises above described be-' cause of insufficient and defective guttering, drains and downspouts on said building, was permitted to flow upon, along and across the said sidewalk in front of said premises and in front of the premises immediately south and adjacent to the said premises of defendant The Brittain Investment Company, and permitted to freeze into thick ice on said sidewalk and said ice was negligently permitted by defendants to remain bn said sidewalk and had thawed and melted and again frozen into rough and uneven ridges, forming a dangerous obstruction to per sons attempting to walk along said sidewalk," etc., the negligence charged being directed against both defendants. Further plaintiff states the injury occurred on December 8, 1919; while plaintiff was walking south on the sidewalk on the west side of Fifth street, between Francis and Felix streets, "immediately south and adjacent to said premises above described," he slipped and fell, sustaining serious injuries, including a dislocation of the right hip joint and a fracture of the righ femur.
The defendant city filed a separate answer in the nature of a general denial and a plea of contributory negligence. Defendant Brittain Investment Company filed only a general denial. The reply was a general denial. The case was tried to a jury and resulted in a verdict for plaintiff and against both defendants in the sum of $5000. Both defendants «appeal.
Defendant City of St. Joseph in its assignments of error charges first that the statutory notice served by plaintiff upon defendant city was erroneously admitted in evidence because (a) it is contradictory and confusing in pointing out the place of the accident, in that the locality given does not correspond with the distance therein stated, and (b) that there is a fatal variance in the place of the accident as stated in plaintiff's petition and evidence and that described in the notice, and (c) that the notice fails to state the "circumstances" of the injury as required by the statute and does not mention the downspout, the faulty construction of which plaintiff claims caused the injury.
The statute requiring the notice above referred to is section 7955, Revised Statutes 1919, and is as follows: "No action shall be maintained against any city of the first class on account of any -injuries growing out of any defect in the condition of any bridge, boulevard, street, sidewalk or thoroughfare in said city, unless notice shall first have been given in writing, verified by affidavit, to the mayor of said city, within sixty days of the occurrence for which such damage is claimed, stating the place where, the time when such injury.was received, and the character and circumstances of the injury, and that the person so injured will claim damages therefor from such city."
The obvious purpose of this statute is to protect the city from unjust claims for damages and in aid thereof to locate with reasonable certainty the place where the accident occurred, and to . describe the circumstances with sufficient definiteness to allow the city to institute an investigation to determine whether or not" it is liable for the injury so reported. [Krucker v. City, 195 Mo. App. 101.] The notice in the instant case states the accident occurred on the west side of Fifth streetdn the City of St. Joseph, Mo., "alongside and near the rear of a building located on the comer fronting on Francis street and about eighty feet from the south line of the intersection of Fifth street*with said Francis street."
J. M. Garvey, for plaintiff, testified that he estimated the distance as stated in that part of the statutory notice quoted above, and that it was "about seventy-five feet — practically eighty feet measuring from the north edge of the sidewalk on Francis street; that the sidewalk measured ten feet in width, the first building on the corner of Fifth and Francis forty feet and the next thirty feet." On cross-examination this witness stated that he got this description from the records, but that he was testifying from a mental calculation and his own information, verified by the records, and that he £ £ stepped oft" the width of the sidewalk.
On behalf of defendants, W. K. Seitz, city engineer, testified that he measured the distance and that beginning at the building line on the south side of Francis Street, a point eighty feet south " would take you to the south line of the building occupied by the Shady barber shop; ' ' and that he did not know the width of the Shady building; that the sidewalk on the south side of Francis street is ten feet in width; that starting from the center of the intersection of the two streets and measuring south eighty feet, "it would be twenty-five feet north of the south line of Shady barber shop."
From these calculations and measurements 'it is clear that there is no material variance between the notice and the proof. There is no dispute as to the date of the accident as stated in the notice, and the character and circumstances of the injury are sufficiently described therein.
Following the injury and on the same day one Louis Kranitz, evidence officer in the city counselor's office, called at St. Joseph hospital, talked with plaintiff and reduced to writing plaintiff's statement. He testified the accident happened about one o'clock and that he had this conversation with plaintiff about four o 'clock the same day; that he went to the place of the accident after the city counselor's office was notified and asked Mr. Shady about it; that "he (Shady) pointed at the sidewalk and said he fell just a-little north of this place," and that the next day policeman Keely and White who had picked plaintiff up had indicated to him the place where the accident occurred.
The statutory notice required is not in any sense a pleading and may not be, so strictly construed. The evidence tends to show that the city was fully advised of all the facts connected .with' the injury, within the meaning of the statute. None of the essentials was omitted nor insufficiently stated.
In Lyons v. City of St. Joseph, 112 Mo. App. 681, Johnson, J., held the notice insufficient because "the only statement contained in the notice relative to the cause of the injury is that it was received by plaintiff 'while walking upon the sidewalks of said city at a point,' etc. . It could not be told from the notice how plaintiff claimed to have been injured." Likewise in Jacobs v. City of St. Joseph, 127 Mo. App. 671, Ellison, J., held the notice insufficient in that it failed to state in any way the character of plaintiff's injuries. The difference between the notices discussed in those cases and the one before us is obvious.