Patterson Ex Rel. Patterson v. Gibson

EAGER, Presiding Judge.

This is a suit by a minor for personal injuries. The amount sought in the petition was $20,000 and, concededly, the plaintiff suffered serious injury. The trial court directed a verdict for the defendant, and subsequently overruled plaintiff’s motion for a new trial.

The child in question, then a boy four and a half or five years of age, lived with his parents in a second-floor apartment or flat in the City of St. Louis, directly across an alley from a corner lot on which a church building was being constructed at the time of the injury. The excavation had been made, the…