Title: Olson v. Chuck
Citation: 199 Or. 90, 259 P.2d 128
Docket Number: N/A
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: July 8, 1953

Affirmed as to Morrow, reversed as to Ding July 8, 1953.
Petition for rehearing denied August 12, 1953.
*91 David M. Spiegel argued the cause for appellant. On the brief were Lenske, Spiegel, Spiegel &amp; Martindale, of Portland.
Randall B. Kester, of Portland, argued the cause for respondent Ben Morrow. On the brief were Maguire, Shields, Morrison &amp; Bailey, of Portland.
Wayne A. Williamson, of Portland, argued the cause for respondent William G. Ding. On the brief were Wilbur, Mautz, Souther &amp; Spaulding, of Portland.
Before LATOURETTE, Chief Justice, and ROSSMAN, LUSK, BRAND and PERRY, Justices.
AFFIRMED AS TO RESPONDENT BEN MORROW.
REVERSED AS TO RESPONDENT WILLIAM G. DING.
ROSSMAN, J.
*92 This cause is before us upon notices of appeal filed by the plaintiff from two judgments entered in this action. One of the judgments, in favor of the defendant-respondent William G. Ding, was rendered December 12, 1949; the other, in favor of the defendant-respondent Ben Morrow, bears as the date of its rendition June 5, 1951. The notice of appeal from the judgment as to Ding states that it was entered after the court had sustained a demurrer filed by Ding and the plaintiff had pleaded no further as to that defendant. The demurrer charged that the complaint failed to state a cause of action against Ding. The judgment as to Morrow was based upon a verdict which the court had directed the jury to return in favor of that defendant. The plaintiff in the action, Agnes Olson, alleged in her complaint that she was injured upon a public sidewalk in front of premises owned by the defendant-respondent Ding and another defendant by the name of Fong, who was not served with process and who made no appearance. The complaint averred that the plaintiff's fall was due to a defect in the sidewalk. Besides the defendants Ding, Fong and Morrow, there were six others who, according to the complaint, were lessees of the building which stood upon the lot to which the sidewalk abutted. Those six are not parties to this appeal. The aforementioned defendant-respondent Morrow is the city engineer of the city of Portland. Thus, it is seen that the defendants were the city engineer, the two owners of the lot and the six occupants of the structure which stands upon the lot. The only respondents are Ding (owner) and Morrow (city engineer). The city of Portland was not a defendant. The parties seemingly are in agreement that Noonan v. City of Portland, 161 *93 Or 213, 88 P2d 808, and the decisions cited in it precluded the possibility of holding the city liable for the plaintiff's purported injury.
Plaintiff-appellant's (Agnes Olson's) brief submits as the first assignment of error the following:
That is the only assignment of error which attacks the judgment entered in favor of Ding. In considering that assignment of error, it must be remembered that the attacked judgment recites that after the court had sustained the demurrer, the plaintiff declined to plead further. The exact words of the judgment are:
Based upon that premise, judgment was rendered in favor of Ding.
It will be observed that the pleading to which the demurrer was sustained was the amended complaint. Omitting mention of facts of which we have already taken notice and of others that are immaterial to the issue before us, the pleading alleged that the six tenants to whom we have adverted, together with the defendant Fong and the defendant-respondent Ding, "constructed and maintained a cement sidewalk upon the land adjoining the street in front of said property, * * *." Continuing, the amended complaint alleged that April 29, 1948, the plaintiff, while walking upon the aforementioned sidewalk, fell when her heel "became caught *94 in a hole that was then and there in the sidewalk". The pleading also averred:
and
The amended complaint designated in appropriate manner Ordinance No. 75,971, § 5-309, of the city. Although the specifications of negligence against the defendant-respondent Ding are not of controlling importance upon this appeal, we now quote the following one:
To the amended complaint thus summarized the court sustained the demurrer filed by the respondent Ding upon the ground that the pleading stated no cause of action against him.
In seeking to support the attacked judgment order, counsel for Ding argue that we are not at liberty to determine whether or not the amended complaint stated a cause of action in favor of the plaintiff against him because, after the order was entered which sustained the demurrer, the plaintiff filed a second amended complaint. They point out that a later pleading supersedes a former one and that thereupon the latter ceases to be a pleading. In view of that argument, it is necessary to return to the record and determine from it what occurred.
*95 Sometime after the entry of the order which sustained Ding's demurrer to the complaint, the plaintiff filed a pleading which she entitled Second Amended Complaint. Its caption included Ding's name, but the pleading contained nothing whatever pertaining to him. It was concerned only with the plaintiff's cause of action against the defendant Morrow. It expanded and amended the charges which the amended complaint had made against that defendant. By the time it was filed, rulings had removed the tenants from the case. We said that the second amended complaint concerned itself exclusively with Morrow; for example, it alleged:
At that point the pleadings set forth the specifications of the plaintiff's charge of negligence against Morrow who was, as we have seen, the city engineer. Ding was left unmentioned, and it is plain that the second amended complaint did not purport to be the plaintiff's medium of presenting her cause of action against him. As to the latter, she had evidently elected to stand upon her amended complaint.
Shortly after the second amended complaint was filed, the defendant Ding presented a motion which read:
We direct attention to the words just quoted, "in which no actionable negligence is charged against this defendant and plaintiff has thus failed to plead further against this defendant". In a preceding paragraph we copied the material part of the judgment order which sustained the motion. It recited, so it will be recalled, that the plaintiff had "failed to plead further against said defendant". Thus, plainly, the motion and the judgment order did not deem that the second amended complaint was a pleading over by the plaintiff after the demurrer had been sustained to the amended complaint.
The brief of counsel for defendant Ding, in arguing in support of the judgment order, says:
Although the first two paragraphs of the quotation appear to confuse and stray away from the contention *97 that the second amended complaint superseded the amended one, we shall give them attention before considering whether or not the later pleading, which was concerned only with Morrow, superseded the earlier one, which averred the plaintiff's cause of action against Ding as well as her cause against Morrow.
It will be observed that the quoted language says: "This appeal is from the judgment entered in favor of the respondent Ding on appellant's second amended complaint." The notice of appeal, however, states that the plaintiff appealed from the judgment order of "December 12, 1949, wherein and whereby a Demurrer was allowed and judgment in favor of William G. Ding was allowed." Clearly, an appellant has a right to pick out the order, decree or judgment which he wishes to challenge. That right belongs to him and not to the respondent. This is, therefore, an appeal from the judgment order which was entered December 12, 1949, the material parts of which we have quoted. By reverting to the quoted language, it will be noticed that it says that after Ding's demurrer to "plaintiff's amended complaint" had been sustained and the plaintiff had "failed to plead further herein against said defendant", the judgment order was entered. Thus it is clear that, so far as Ding is concerned, the plaintiff appealed from the judgment order which was entered after Ding's demurrer to the amended complaint [not the second amended complaint] was sustained. The second amended complaint was not concerned with Ding, and he filed no demurrer attacking it.
We come now to the third paragraph of the excerpt which we quoted from the brief submitted by respondent Ding. The latter, if we may repeat, argues that this court, in determining whether or not the challenged *98 judgment order is erroneous, is not at liberty to examine the amended complaint. He claims that we can consider nothing except the second amended complaint, which, as we have pointed out, makes no effort to present a cause of action against him. The brief of his counsel declares:
1. Summarizing facts previously mentioned, the record presents this situation: (1) the second amended complaint is unconcerned with Ding; (2) the pleading just mentioned sets forth nothing except the plaintiff's cause of action against Morrow; (3) Ding's motion which eventually resulted in the entry of the attacked judgment stated that the plaintiff had failed to "plead further herein against this defendant" [Ding]; and (4) the attacked judgment recognized that the second amended complaint was not filed "against said defendant" [Ding]. This court has held many times, as the defendant Ding states, that when a party files an amended pleading as to any of his adversaries, the original pleading ceases to be a pleading as to them. Noonan v. City of Portland, supra, is an example of the decisions which so hold. See, also, 71 CJS, Pleading, § 321, p. 716. But the second amended complaint was not intended to be a statement of the plaintiff's cause of action as to Ding. Both Ding and the court so understood, as is clearly revealed by the motion for judgment and by the order under attack which sustained the motion. The second amended complaint *99 was not intended by the plaintiff to supersede the amended complaint as a statement of her cause of action against Ding, and all concerned with the case so understood. We are satisfied that the second amended complaint did not supersede the parts of the amended complaint which set forth the plaintiff's cause of action against Ding. Respondent's contention to the contrary is rejected.
2. The defendant Ding submits another contention which has its source in procedural rules. This contention stems from the fact that the circuit court, upon motion made by the tenant-defendants, had struck from the files the amended complaint. The order deemed the pleading frivolous as to those defendants. Citing Abrahamson v. Northwestern Pulp &amp; Paper Co., 141 Or 339, 15 P2d 472, 17 P2d 1117, Ding contends that the effect of the order was to restore the original complaint. When the tenants were served with the original complaint, they filed a demurrer which charged that the pleading did not state a cause of action against them. The demurrer was sustained. Later, the plaintiff filed the amended complaint and in it repeated the same charges against the tenants that were made in the original complaint. Unlike the latter, the amended complaint added as a defendant the city engineer and made charges of negligence against him. At that juncture the tenants moved to strike the amended complaint as frivolous; that is, that it repeated averments which had been adjudged insufficient. The court sustained the motion in an order which recited:
Oregon Laws 1949, ch 310, in amending § 1-903, OCLA, made the latter read as follows:
We think it is evident that the amended complaint was stricken only as to the moving defendants (the tenants). We also think that both the defendant Ding and the court so understood the situation. For instance, after the order which struck had been made, the defendant Ding filed the demurrer which we have mentioned to the amended complaint. Thus he recognized that the amended complaint had not vanished from the record. Later, the court ruled upon the demurrer and, in sustaining it, entered this order:
We believe that the amended complaint was not stricken as to the respondent Ding. He had not moved against that pleading and none of the latter's averments were repetitions from a previous pleading which had been *101 adjudged insufficient. The effect of the order upon which Ding depends was limited to the moving defendants. We find no merit in this contention of the respondents.
We come now to the contention of the defendant Ding that the amended complaint fails to state a cause of action against him. His brief epitomizes his contention in this manner.
The notification which the defendant has in mind is the notice to repair for which § 5-309 of the Public Works Code of the city of Portland makes provision. Before taking notice of that section of the city's ordinances, it is desirable to have in mind some of the other enactments of the city. Section 1-110 of the city's charter contains this provision:
*102 Section 5-309 of the city's Public Works Code says, in part:
Having imposed upon the owner the duty of "maintaining in good repair the sidewalks in front" of his property, § 5-309 shortly specifies functions which the city engineer must perform concerning sidewalks which are in a defective condition. The defendant Ding finds in this provision a basis for his contention that the owner must receive notice from the city engineer of disrepair before he can be held liable for an injury suffered as a result thereof. Before taking note of the part of § 5-309 upon which the defendant depends, we pause to observe that the defendant seemingly believes that even if an owner of property had actual knowledge of a cavity in the sidewalk in front of his house, possibly gained through himself stumbling into the cavity, still he would not be liable to another who, some days later, met with the same misfortune, unless the city engineer had given the notice mentioned in § 5-309 and twenty days had passed after the notice was given. The plaintiff contends that the notice required by § 5-309 is not a prerequisite to subjecting the owner to liability in a tort action, but is a part of the process whereby the city can subject the lot to liability for the expense which the city incurs in repairing the defective sidewalk. The part of § 5-309 which is the piece de resistance of the contentions reads as follows:
Section 5-310 prescribes the course which the owner and the city engineer shall take concerning the defective sidewalk after the notice exacted by § 5-309 has been given. It says:
Section 5-311 delineates the manner in which the city council may subject property with the cost of repairing a defective sidewalk provided the notice authorized by § 5-309 was given and the required repairs were not made in the period of twenty days following the notice. The section reads:
So far it appears to be clear that §§ 5-309, 5-310 and 5-311 cast upon the owner the duty to maintain in a reasonably safe condition the public sidewalk in front of his property and prescribe the manner in which expenses incurred by the city in the repair of the walk may be rendered a lien upon the property if the city engineer gave the required notice and the owner for more than twenty days neglected its demands.
*105 We now come to § 5-313, which reads as follows:
It will be observed that § 5-313 contains these words: "After the owner or agent thereof has been notified as provided in the charter so to do". No provision of Portland's present charter requires notice to be given to an owner concerning a defect in a sidewalk. Section 5-313, prior to 1913, was a part of the city's charter, but when the commission form of government for the city was inaugurated in 1913 that provision was reduced to the status of an ordinance. We shall, however, attach no importance to that circumstance.
The respondent Ding contends that § 5-313 should be construed to mean that an owner, in front of whose property there is a defective sidewalk, is liable to one injured as the result of the defect only in the event that the notices were given for which § 5-309 makes provision. In short, he attaches no consequences to actual knowledge.
The enactment of which we first took notice and which reads: "No recourse shall be had against the city for damage * * * sustained by reason of the defective condition of any sidewalk * * *; but in such case the person * * * on whom the law may *106 have imposed the obligation to repair such defect * * * shall be * * * liable to the party injured" is a part of Portland's charter. The other enactments, including, as we have just indicated, § 5-313, are parts of the city's ordinances. Thus, it is seen that the charter in unqualified terms renders "the person or persons on whom the law may have imposed the obligation to repair * * * liable to the party injured". If the respondent Ding's contention is accepted, the owner is not liable, regardless of his actual knowledge of the defective condition, unless the course of notice-giving outlined in § 5-309 was pursued. Thus, his liability would be conditional.
It is our duty to construe the above-quoted provisions and in so doing to be guided by § 2-216, OCLA, which presents the cardinal rule of statutory construction. That provision says:
Accordingly, it is our duty if possible to adopt a construction which will give effect to "all" of the above municipal provisions. We shall now determine whether they can be reasonably reconciled.
This court has held many times that the validity of § 1-110 of the city's charter, which renders the city nonsuable for injuries resulting from sidewalk defects, can be upheld only in the event that an adequate remedy is afforded the injured party against others who are legally responsible for the defect. A good *107 illustration is Caviness v. City of Vale, 86 Or 554, 169 P 95. The charter provision there under consideration was substantially the same as § 1-110. The decision said:
Caviness v. City of Vale, supra, and other decisions by this court to the same effect, of which Noonan v. City of Portland is the most recent, hold that the validity of charter provisions such as § 1-110 can be sustained only if an adequate remedy for the liability arising out of the sidewalk injury is afforded against some other responsible person. The same decisions hold that if the owner is rendered responsible for the maintenance of the sidewalk and liable for his negligence, charter provisions which render the city nonsuable are valid. However, in all of the decisions which so held the city engineer or other municipal officials were also rendered liable.
If the contentions of the respondent Ding are accepted, an owner, in front of whose home there lies a sidewalk which he knows is in disrepair, would not be responsible for resulting casualties until the city engineer had complied with the provisions of § 5-309 of the city's Public Works Code above quoted. The owner's actual knowledge of the derelict condition of the walk is regarded as immaterial by the respondent. Evidently the latter believes that if the owner himself wrecked the walk and thereby created the hazards, still he would not be liable to those injured unless the city engineer gave the notices which § 5-309 outlines. If the owner had no actual knowledge, but if the perilous condition had existed for a period sufficiently long to have rendered it notorious, yet, according to the respondent's contention, the owner would not be liable for injuries unless the city engineer had complied with *109 § 5-309. It is clear that the respondent Ding deems actual knowledge irrelevant upon the issue of the owner's negligence. He attaches importance solely to the constructive notice for which § 5-309 makes provision.
The city of Portland has only one full-time sidewalk inspector and its walks are two thousand miles in length. The inspector visits all walks once a year and some twice a year. Those circumstances indicate that if the respondent's contentions are sustained, a perilous condition can exist for a year or so in which the owner would be required to do nothing, notwithstanding his actual knowledge of the defective condition of his sidewalk.
The following is taken from 63 CJS, Municipal Corporations, § 871, p 249:
We copy the following from 25 Am Jur, Highways, § 440, p 731:
From § 441, page 733, of the same treatise we take this:
From the foregoing, we notice that generally if an owner has actual knowledge that a sidewalk for which he is responsible has become defective, his duty to take action commences as of that time, unless legislation fixes some other time. But if the condition of the walk was notorious, he may be charged with constructive notice of its condition. In other words, an owner is not charged with notice of a defect the moment one develops unless he himself created it or had actual knowledge of it.
It appears to us that § 1-110 of the charter and §§ 5-309, 5-310 and 5-311 of the ordinances can be reasonably construed to mean:
3. Such is our construction of the municipal enactments upon which the parties rely. It harmonizes all of the provisions. It assigns to § 5-309 a means of shortening the period for constructive notice arising from disrepair which otherwise might have extended over many months of time. As previously indicated, we think that the ordinance provisions also constitute a means of enabling the city to recoup from the property the cost of sidewalk repairs made by the city.
We believe that the construction set forth in the preceding paragraph is in accord with previous decisions by this court which the respondent cites. For example, his brief cites Humphry v. Portland, 79 Or 430, 154 P 897. In that case, according to the statement of the Chief Justice which precedes the opinion, the owner "did not know of the defective condition of the walk" in front of her property. The decision said that the city auditor had failed "to mail Mrs. Frederickson a notice of the defective condition of the walk." Thus the owner had neither actual knowledge nor constructive notice of the defect. She was held not liable.
4. The complaint in the case at bar avers that the defect in the sidewalk which caused the plaintiff's fall had existed "for many months" before the plaintiff *113 suffered her injury. It also alleges that "defendants and each of them knew or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known" of the defect. It is our belief that the averment was sufficient to charge that the defendant either possessed actual knowledge of the defect or had received constructive notice of it. In either event, his duty to repair antedated the plaintiff's fall. Error was committed when the defendant's demurrer was sustained; it should have been overruled. We sustain the first assignment of error.
5. The plaintiff-appellant's second assignment of error follows:
Although we have given careful attention to the evidence which was received during the trial, we encountered nothing which indicates that the defendant-respondent Morrow neglected any phase of his duties. To the contrary, the record shows that he capably, intelligently and carefully discharged the many duties which the city has placed upon him. The appellant's brief nowhere calls attention to anything which Morrow should have done but neglected. The able trial judge, in directing the attacked verdict, summarized the evidence. We observe that appellant's opening brief and her reply brief do not challenge the facts which were summarized in that manner.
We do not believe that error was committed when the motion for a directed verdict was sustained. We find no merit in the second assignment of error.
It follows that the judgment in favor of respondent Ding is reversed, and that the one entered in favor of respondent Morrow is affirmed.