Farrell v. Boston Water & Sewer Commission

On October 4, 1979, Eileen J. Farrell and her husband, visiting Boston from Illinois, were taking an early evening stroll in the Back Bay. When they were on the sidewalk at the northwest comer of Boylston and Exeter Streets, Mrs. Farrell tripped and fell, sustaining bodily injuries. What caused her to trip was a two-to-four inch difference in elevation between the surfaces on two adjacent parts of the sidewalk. The part of the sidewalk with the lower elevation was owned by the city of Boston. The part of the sidewalk with the higher surface was a headstone, a fifteen hundred pound, smooth,…