Court Opinion

ID: 9519550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:18:32.201758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:29.630880
License: Public Domain

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARD, dissenting: I dissent. The testimony here as to the difference in grade of the sidewalk was conflicting. The plaintiff testified that from her visual observation at the time of the accident the difference was “about 2 inches.” A witness for the defendant testified, on the basis of an actual measurement made by him some 5Vs years later using a depth gauge, that the differential was 11/8 inches. The majority states that the latter figure would constitute such a minimal defect as not to be actionable. The majority states, however, that the jury may have accepted the plaintiff’s figure, and that a differential of “about 2 inches ” makes the question of liability one for the jury to decide. The evidence with respect to the difference in grade is in a somewhat unsatisfactory condition. The testimony on behalf of both the plaintiff and the defendant was given with reference to photographs taken by the plaintiff which were placed in evidence. These photographs were taken at some unspecified date between the time of the accident in March 1965 and the trial, which took place in November 1970. When the record was assembled for appeal, it was discovered that these photographs were no longer in the court files, and, by stipulation, other photographs were substituted. The defendant’s witness did testify at the trial, however, that the condition of the sidewalk when he measured it was the same as that shown in one of the photographs introduced into evidence by the plaintiff. The majority’s conclusion that a difference in grade of “about 2 inches” requires that the jury be permitted to decide the question of liability purports to be based on Arvidson v. City of Elmhurst (1957), 11 Ill. 2d 601. I do not consider the decision in Arvidson to be controlling here. The defective sidewalk there was located next to a business street. It contained parking meters and abutted on stores. The plaintiff was there on an errand,' and had no previous knowledge of the condition of the sidewalk. See 11 Ill. 2d 601,609. The court in Arvidson, in discussing the demarcation between questions for the jury and questions for the court, was at pains to note, “[N] o mathematical standard can be adopted in fixing the line of demarcation, and *** each case must be determined upon its own particular facts and circumstances.” (11 Ill. 2d 601, 604.) As the majority here acknowledges, “An unacceptable height variation in one location, such as a busy commercial area where pedestrians must be constantly alert to avoid bumping into one another, may be nonactionable in another area, such as a residential one.” While the majority states that it is not diminishing the general force of the rule announced in Arvidson that slight inequalities in grade are not actionable, I believe that this decision nonetheless does so. In Lansing v. County of McLean (1978), 69 Ill. 2d 562, 569-70, this court recently reaffirmed the rule announced in Strappelli v. City of Chicago (1939), 371 Ill. 72, that a municipality is not liable for failure to remove snow which has accumulated on a street or sidewalk from natural causes. Although liability here was not predicated on a claim that the plaintiff had slipped on the snow, but on a claim that she had stubbed her toe on a raised slab in the pavement, the result here is nevertheless inconsistent with Lansing and Strappelli. The majority states that if the assumed 2-inch difference in grade had been visible “the question of plaintiff’s due care would be less easily resolved,” but that because the difference was obscured by snow, the jury’s finding that the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care was warranted. The place where the plaintiff fell was in a residential neighborhood only a.few doors from her home. She testified that she had traversed this distance twice a day over a period of 6 years, and that she had noticed the height differential every time she passed by. Had the defect been visible, I think a judgment n.o.v. in favor of the defendant would have been proper. See Shannon v. Addison Trail High School (1975), 33 Ill. App. 3d 953; Davis v. City of Chicago (1972), 8 Ill. App. 3d 94; Annot., 41 A.L.R.2d 739 (1955). The implication of the decision is thus that a difference in grade which, if visible, would not lead to liability does so if it is concealed by a snowfall which, under the decision in Strappelli, the city had no obligation to remove.