Court Opinion

ID: 9865031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:21:17.953302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:57.267725
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Hilliard
dissenting.
An action for damages for personal injuries resulting from a fall on a city sidewalk. On the eve of trial, the city orally moved for judgment on the pleadings, which was granted.
Plaintiff, proceeding as required in such matters, served written notice of the accident on the city, stating that she caught “her toe on the edge of a cement slab of said sidewalk, which slab was raised approximately two inches above the level of the adjoining slab * * that she was “precipitated to the sidewalk * * * and as a result thereof suffered” the injuries of which com*122plaint is made. In her complaint she pleaded the notice and set it forth fully, but in describing the condition of the place of the accident she alleged that “the edge of the concrete block * * * was raised approximately three (3) inches above the level of the adjoining cement slab.” The discrepancy between “approximately two inches,” as set forth in the notice, and “approximately three (3) inches,” as alleged in the complaint, is important in that, if, in the circumstances here, approximately two inches means not more than two inches, as I think, and that the notice, rather than the complaint, controls, also, as I think, then, as a matter of law, our decisions considered, the trial court rightly absolved the city. Denver v. Burrows, 76 Colo. 17, 227 Pac. 840; City of Colorado Springs v. Phillips, 76 Colo. 257, 230 Pac. 617.
Considering plaintiff’s interest in stating the situation as favorably to her cause as the facts warranted, and her immediate knowledge of the extent of the defect in the sidewalk, I am persuaded that the language she employed in giving notice of the accident, did not, nor was it intended to, imply that the “raise” in the sidewalk was greater than two inches. Rather, reasonably regarded, she meant that it approached, or came near to, two inches. That meaning is the definition which Webster gives to the word “Approximate,” one form of the word plaintiff employed in both her notice and her complaint. “Approximately,” her precise word, is not synonymous with “more or less.” The latter expression implies going beyond or over the figure named, while approximately does not. Bloomington Canning Co. v. Union Can Co., 94 Ill. App. 62.
Since the notice given by plaintiff was a prerequisite to the establishment of liability on the part of the city, I think failure to state facts therein justifying recovery, concludes her. In such circumstances she may not have resort to- her complaint — the notice controls. The variance between the notice and complaint only tends to emphasize the weakness of the notice. See Harrington *123v. City of Battle Creek, 288 Mich. 152, 284 N.W. 680; 43 C.J., p. 1240, §2009. I think the judgment should be affirmed.
Mr. Justice Bakke and Mr. Justice Burke concur in this opinion.