Opinion ID: 1637866
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: In Baldridge , the Court of Appeals held literal compliance with the statute is necessary. Id. at 431. Appellant argues, however, that the City of Florence had actual notice of her accident: a city employee had taken pictures of the area just after Appellant's fall, there was a Fire Department/Ambulance report, and the city had prepared, signed, and dated incident reports on January 20, 2006. However, actual or constructive notice of the incident on the part of the city is not enoughAppellant still must have met the dictates of KRS 411.110 before properly filing suit against the city. Reibel v. Woolworth, 301 Ky. 76, 190 S.W.2d 866 (1945). In order to satisfy KRS 411.110, Appellant was required to state the time of her accident. We look to the plain language and the purposes of the statute in order to determine whether Appellant strictly complied with the statute by stating that her accident occurred on or about January 18, 2006. As we explained in City of Louisville v. O'Neill, the purposes of KRS 411.110 are: to give the city an opportunity to investigate the scene of an accident and correct any defective condition, if such exists, to enable the city to investigate and evaluate the case so that if liability exists it might have an opportunity to settle it without long and expensive litigation, and to give the city an opportunity to protect its funds against unjust and illegal claims. 440 S.W.2d 265, 266 (Ky.1969). Here, however, we must construe the date given in connection with the language on or about. As our predecessor court explained in Render v. Commonwealth, [t]he common understanding of the words `on or about,' when used in connection with a definite point of time, is that they do not put the time at large, but indicate that it is stated with approximate accuracy. 206 Ky. 1, 266 S.W. 914, 916 (1924) (citation omitted). Therein, the court stated that a period of three or four months was not within the referenced time frame. Id. While Render concerned a date in a criminal indictment, its construction of the term on or about is pertinent here. We also addressed the term on or about in James v. Commonwealth, noting that: [o]n or about the date could have covered a period of several days. 482 S.W.2d 92, 93 (Ky.1972). As our precedents make clear, whether a particular date reasonably falls within the window of time created by the term on or about is a fact-intensive review which is relative to the circumstances of the particular casethe window may be as small as several days, but may not be as large as three to four months and depends entirely on the circumstances of the individual case. Clearly, however, two (2) days is within the span of several days and thus, notice that an accident occurred on or about January 18, 2006 includes January 20, 2006. We also note that the notice in Baldridge did not contain the on or about language as did Appellant's notice in the case at hand. 613 S.W.2d at 431. Simply put, this is not a case of substantial compliance; it is one of actual compliance. Appellant therefore complied with the statutory requirement that she state the time of her accident in her notice to the city and met the statute's purpose of protecting public safety by apprising the city as to a defective condition so they had an opportunity to investigate and correct it. Furthermore, we note that Appellant complied with the ninety (90) day period in which she had to give the city notice. The statute speaks to this point: notice must be given within ninety (90) days of the date of the incident. KRS 411.110.