City of Beardstown v. Smith

Citations

• 150 Ill. 169
• 37 N.E. 211

Syllabus

<p>1. Street crossings — duly of city to keep in repair. This court is not prepared to hold that the duty of a city to keep its street crossings in a reasonably safe condition for the use of foot-passengers arises only when it sees fit, in the exercise of its discretion, to construct an artificial crossing over the street.</p> <p>2. Where a street crossing has been established de facto by public use, the city is not at liberty, merely because no artificial crossing has been constructed, to intersect the crossing which the public have established for themselves, with dangerous ditches and pit-falls.</p> <p>3. Same — cutting ditch across traveled pathway. Where no sidewalk is made along a street, but there is a well-defined palh along the side of such street, used by the public, and the city causes a ditch or drain to be dug in a cross-street- intersecting such traveled pathway, it will become the duty of the city to keep the crossing of such path in a reasonably safe condition and repair for the use of pedestrians, in order to escape liability to one injured while attempting to cross the same.</p> <p>4. While a city may, perhaps, not be chargeable with negligence for omitting to make a proper crossing of a street, yet if it sees fit to construct a ditch in the street it will be bound to use reasonable care to so construct and maintain it as to make it reasonably safe, in view of such uses as were being actually made of the street.</p> <p>5. Same — degree of care required of persons using the same. In an action against a city to recover for a personal injury from a defective or unsafe street crossing, an instruction for the plaintiff, merely holding that a person passing over a sidewalk or street is not bound to use more than reasonable care and caution in respect to his own safety, does not require of the plaintiff a lower degree of care and diligence than the law prescribes, and is not erroneous.</p> <p>6. Negligence — degree of care required of plaintiff. In an act