Court Opinion

ID: 9832975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:20:46.658995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:56.801673
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Upon further consideration we have concluded that the record supports the judgment, and does not warrant reversal. The evidence raises no more than, if as much as, a mere surmise that the lid of the meter box was negligently constructed or maintained, and there is nothing in the evidence to raise an inference that any act or omission of the city proximately caused appellant’s injuries. Appellant, habitually walking back and forth over and upon the meter box, stopped in its vicinity one day to greet arid converse with friends sitting in a car parked at the curb. While appellant was so engaged, and while she was standing upon or moving about on and off the meter box, the lid thereof was in some way displaced, and her foot went down in the opening thus made. Apparently the lid was intact when she paused thereat, and it, was some minutes later that the accident happened. How it happened is not explained in the record. Always theretofore, so far as the record discloses, the lid was kept intact, and could not be displaced except through intentional manipulation, and while it must be assumed, as a matter of course, that appellant did not intentionally displace the lid, there is nothing in the evidence to warrant an inference that its position was rendered insecure, or that it got out of position on this occasion, by reason of faulty construction or negligent’ maintenance. The record being in this condition, this court would not be justified in holding that the trial court erred in directing a verdict for appellant, but must affirm the judgment rendered upon that verdict.
Appellees’ motion for rehearing is granted, and the judgment of the trial court affirmed.