Court Opinion

ID: 9846847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:49:25.712298+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:54.813149
License: Public Domain

Judge HUDSON,
dissenting.
I believe plaintiff submitted sufficient evidence of defendant’s negligence to allow the jury’s verdict to stand. Thus, I respectfully dissent to the majority’s decision that the trial court should have granted defendant’s motion for a directed verdict on that issue.
The majority finds that the sidewalk defect of which plaintiff complains was trivial as a matter of law and points to Watkins v. Raleigh, 214 N.C. 644, 200 S.E. 424 (1939), Joyce v. City of High Point, 30 N.C. App. 346, 226 S.E.2d 856 (1976), Bagwell v. Brevard, 256 N.C. 465, 124 S.E.2d 129 (1962), and Falatovitch v. Clinton, 259 N.C. 58, 129 S.E.2d 598 (1963), in support of its position. I believe these cases are distinguishable. Watkins was decided on the basis of contributory negligence — the Supreme Court declined to explicitly address the issue of the whether the sidewalk defect was trivial as a matter of law. Most significantly, in none of the cases cited by the majority did the plaintiff present expert testimony regarding standards of care in the maintenance of sidewalks.
In the present case, plaintiff presented testimony from civil engineering expert Peter Verna and engineering and accident reconstruction expert Michael Dickinson that the condition of the sidewalk upon which plaintiff fell was defective. Verna indicated that the sidewalk had settled over time because the soil beneath it had not been properly compacted prior to pouring the concrete. Dickinson testified that the difference in elevation between the two sidewalk slabs was more than three times that allowed by several applicable state and national safety codes. Both men opined that its condition resulted in an increased probability that pedestrians would trip and fall.
Randolph Jones, defendant’s employee in charge of the city’s sidewalk repair program, admitted that the sidewalk upon which plaintiff fell did not meet “the requirements of standards of good repair.” Also, the city investigator who inspected the site shortly after plaintiff’s accident labeled the sidewalk as “hazardous.”
*596Thus, the present case differs from Watkins, Joyce, Bagwell, and Falatovitch in that there was a wealth of evidence, including testimony by engineering experts and a representative of the city itself, from which a jury could and did find that defendant had breached its duty to maintain the sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition. Although the standard of care in a negligence case is a question of law, the degree of care required to measure up to the standard under the particular circumstances of the case is an issue for the jury. Tindle v. Denny, 3 N.C. App. 567, 570, 165 S.E.2d 351, 354 (1969).
Thus, I believe the question of whether defendant kept the sidewalk “in a reasonably safe condition for the ordinary use thereof,” Mosseller v. Asheville, 267 N.C. 104, 107, 147 S.E.2d 558, 561 (1966), and whether the character of the defect was not trivial “such that injuries . . . might reasonably be foreseen,” id. at 108, 147 S.E.2d at 561, was properly for the jury to decide. To hold that the defect was trivial as a matter of law based upon cases decided decades earlier and in which no expert testimony was presented overlooks the fact that safety standards evolve over time.
I also believe plaintiff presented sufficient evidence that defendant had constructive notice of the defect in order to take the issue to the jury. “It is the duty of the city to exercise a reasonable and continuing supervision over its streets in order that it may know their condition and it is held to have knowledge of a defect which such inspection would have disclosed to it.” Mosseller, 267 N.C. at 108-09, 147 S.E.2d at 562.
Randolph Jones testified that at the time of plaintiffs accident, the city did not have a program for routine inspection of its sidewalks. An inspection was conducted only if requested by a citizen. A jury could have used this information to support the conclusion that defendant failed to exercise due care to discover defects in its sidewalks.
Furthermore, “when observable defects in a highway [or sidewalk] have existed for a time so long that they ought to have been observed, notice of them is implied, and is imputed to those whose duty it is to repair them.” Fitzgerald v. Concord, 140 N.C. 110, 113, 52 S.E. 309, 310 (1905) (citation omitted). Here, engineering expert Peter Verna testified that the sidewalk slab in question began settling shortly after construction in 1988 and the settlement had continued gradually since that time. By 1991, the difference in elevation between the slabs would have been two-thirds of an inch. He opined *597that when the difference becomes half an inch, the sidewalk needs to be fixed. Expert Michael Dickinson testified that the difference in elevation had been in excess of half an inch for between one year, two months and six years before the date of plaintiff’s fall.
“On the question of notice implied from the continued existence of a defect, no definite or fixed rule can be laid down as to the time required and it is usually a question for the jury on the facts and circumstances of each particular case . . . .” Id. at 114, 52 S.E. at 310. Here, there was expert testimony regarding the length of time the defect had been in existence in the sidewalk upon which plaintiff fell. Cf. Smith v. Hickory, 252 N.C. 316, 319, 113 S.E.2d 557, 560 (1960) (noting that plaintiff’s guess as to how long sidewalk defect had existed was conjecture and that she had no expert testimony on the issue).
By contrast, in Willis v. City of New Bern, 137 N.C. App. 762, 529 S.E.2d 691 (2000), cited by the majority as a case in which the Court found a lack of constructive notice, there was no evidence as to how long the sidewalk defect had been in existence. Furthermore, in Willis, there is no indication evidence was presented regarding the city’s inspection program or lack thereof.
Gower v. Raleigh, 270 N.C. 149, 153 S.E.2d 857 (1967), is also distinguishable. In Gower, plaintiff alleged the city was negligent in failing to repair a crack in the street and remove an oily substance from the sidewalk. The Court, in holding there was no constructive notice to the city, found there was “nothing to indicate how long the oily substance had been upon the sidewalk or curb.” 270 N.C. at 151, 153 S.E.2d at 859. By contrast, in the present case, there was evidence as to how long the sidewalk defect had existed.
The Gower court further commented that if plaintiff herself had not noticed the crack in the street, which she described as being “real small,” then the city’s inspectors could not have been expected to see it either. Id. The Court appears to presume there will be inspections of the sidewalk by the city, but in the case before us defendant admitted it conducted none. Furthermore, in this case, witnesses testified the sidewalk defect was easily visible.
Gower did point out that if a defect is easily visible, normally a plaintiff will be found to be contributorily negligent by failing to avoid it. Id. at 151-52, 153 S.E.2d at 859. However, in this case, there was lay and expert testimony that the defect was not visible to a per*598son walking in the direction plaintiff was walking. There was evidence that the elevation difference, however, would be clearly visible to a person approaching from the opposite direction. Thus, this case presents an unusual mix of facts, where there was evidence that the defect was large enough to be noticed on inspection, yet plaintiff was unable to see it before falling through no fault of her own.
In conclusion, I believe there was sufficient evidence of a breach of duty on the part of defendant in failing to repair the defect in question, and sufficient evidence that defendant had constructive notice of the defect, in order to take the case to the jury. Furthermore, in that defendant failed to present “more than a scintilla of evidence” that plaintiff was contributorily negligent, the trial court also properly granted plaintiffs motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on that issue and for a new trial on the issue of damages. Thus, I vote to affirm the decision of the trial court in all respects.