Hayes v. City of Cambridge

The plaintiff claimed to have received personal injuries in consequence of a defective street crossing in the defendant city, the defective condition of the crossing having been caused by an accumulation of snow and ice thereon, and by the form the snow and ice had taken as the result of the travel over it.

Before the passage of the St. of 1877, c. 234, § 2, (Pub. Sts. c. 52, § 18,) it would have been sufficient to fix the liability of *403the city to prove the existence of the defect, and that it had continued for a certain time, though it was out of the power of the city to remedy it. George v.…