Martin v. City of Opelousas

The writer respectfully dissents from our reversal of the trial court.

The plaintiff is a pedestrian injured through tripping at a pedestrian crossing over an inconspicuous vertical projection to the street surface. The site of the accident was a heavily travelled intersection in the heart of the business district. The nature of the defect was, insofar as eastbound pedestrian traffic such as the plaintiff, a hump perpendicular to the surface of the street, nearly two inches in height. Since the entire street surface was overlaid with blacktop or asphalt, this asphalt bump was not readily…