Billings v. City of Worcester
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort on the Gen. Sts. c. 44, § 22, for an injury alleged to have been caused to the plaintiff by a defect in a street which the defendants were bound to keep in repair.
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Tort on the Gen. Sts. c. 44, § 22, for an injury alleged to have been caused to the plaintiff by a defect in a street which the defendants were bound to keep in repair. At the trial, before Ames, J., the plaintiff testified that, about ten minutes before six o’clock on the evening of December 25, 1868, at which time it was “ not very dark,” she was travelling, on foot, upon the sidewalk on the west side of Main Street in Worcester, walking about four feet distant from the buildings abutting on the sidewalk, which was twenty feet wide, when, as she was passing the doorway of a building called…
1Opinion of the CourtWells, J.
The question, raised upon the instructions excepted to, is substantially this : Whether the same condition of a street or sidewalk, which, if produced “from the operation of general causes, as by reason of atmospheric changes,” resulting in a slippery state of the surface, would not be a defect, may be shown by proof and found by a jury to be in fact a defect for which the city or town is liable, “ if the ice is formed by some local cause ” such as those enumerated by the judge at the trial. The jury were instructed that smooth ice, “ not broken up into unevenness,” may be a defect; and that…
2Cases cited3 opinions
- Luther v. City of WorcesterMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1867
- Stone v. Inhabitants of HubbardstonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1868
- Hutchins v. City of BostonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1867
3Cited by25 opinions
- Owen v. City of IndependenceSupreme Court of the United States · 1980
- Taylor v. . City of YonkersNew York Court of Appeals · 1887
- Newton v. City of WorcesterMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1899
- George v. City of HaverhillMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1872
- Cromarty v. City of BostonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1879
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