City of Chicago v. Starr

Citations

• 42 Ill. 174

Syllabus

<p>1. Cohpabatiye negligbnce—dangerous obstructions to streets—children playing at large. A heavy counter, some eighteen feet long and three feet high, was placed on the sidewalk in one of the principal thoroughfares in the city of Chicago, by some individual, without authority from the city; the counter was leaned against a fence which bordered the walk, with its open side toward it, and the bottom standing twelve or eighteen inches out from the fence. The counter had remained in that situation two or three weeks, when some children were climbing upon or about it, and thereby caused it to fall over and kill one of them. The child who was killed was six years old, and had frequently been upon the streets in the most crowded parts of the city, sometimes alone and sometimes with other children, and, at the time of the accident, was six blocks from home. In an action under the statute, against the city, to recover damages on account of the death of the child, caused by the alleged negligence of the city in permitting the counter to remain in so dangerous a position, it was held, there was negligence on both sides — on the part of the city, in allowing the counter to remain in that situation, and on the part of the parents of the child, in permitting him, at his age, to roam the crowded thoroughfares of the city, at such a distance from his home. But the negligence on the part of the city was not only not more, but was even less than that attributable to the parents of the child.</p> <p>3. In estimating the degree of carelessness with which the city is chargeable in such a case, the character of the obstruction is to be considered with reference to the proper uses of the street as a thoroughfare of travel, and not as a play-ground for children; and whether prudent persons would regard it as dangerous. The degree of carelessness is not to he judged from a single fatal accident. In deciding upon the question of comparative negligence, all these matters are to he taken int