Steele v. City of Boston
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by being struck by a sled on Boston Common. Answer, a general denial. At the trial in this court, before Soule, J., the plaintiff offered to prove the following facts: The defendant, from time immemorial, has owned a tract of land enclosed by fences and used as a place of public resort for the recreation of the people, and known as Boston Common.
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Tort for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by being struck by a sled on Boston Common. Answer, a general denial. At the trial in this court, before Soule, J., the plaintiff offered to prove the following facts: The defendant, from time immemorial, has owned a tract of land enclosed by fences and used as a place of public resort for the recreation of the people, and known as Boston Common. This common is traversed by divers footpaths, leading in different directions, which have been made and kept in repair by the defendant, and to which access is gained from the streets through…
1Opinion of the CourtMorton, J.
The presiding justice rightly ruled that, upon the plaintiff’s offer of proof, the action could not be maintained.
There was no evidence offered that the footpaths on the common have ever been laid out as highways or town ways. The city holds the common for the public benefit, and not for its emolument, or as a source of revenue, and has constructed and kept in repair these paths as a part of the common for the comfort and recreation of the public, and not as a part of its system of highways or streets. It is not liable under the statutes for any defect or want of repair in them. Oliver v.…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Oliver v. City of WorcesterMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1869
3Cited by30 opinions
- Higginson v. Treasurer & School House CommissionersMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1912
- Cornelisen v. City of AtlantaSupreme Court of Georgia · 1917
- Lowell v. City of BostonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1948
- Codman v. CrockerMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1909
- Blakeley v. White Star LineMichigan Supreme Court · 1908
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