Court Opinion

ID: 9725211
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:34:43.435325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:12.556805
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the determination of the majority that the complaint states facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action under the safe-place statute.
First, I do not consider a seawall to be a structure bearing any resemblance to a public building. This in itself renders the complaint fatally defective under our holding in Hoepner v. Eau Claire (1953), 264 Wis. 608, 60 N. W. (2d) 392.
Second, plaintiff was not injured because of any defect or unsafe condition of the seawall, but because he dove from it into shallow water. Certainly, the beach beyond the seawall was not part of a structure even if the result of artificial fill. In the Hoepner Case we held that a baseball diamond con*635structed of fill material was not a “structure” within the meaning of the safe-place statute. A beach made as a result of fill stands in the same category.
Giving the complaint its most-liberal interpretation, the negligence of defendant city consisted in a failure to warn plaintiff of the shallowness of the water. This is active negligence for which the city is not liable under the doctrine of municipal tort immunity, and plaintiff has not addressed any argument to us in this case asking for the abolition of. such doctrine.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Hallows joins in this dissenting opinion.