City of Joliet v. Seward

Citations

• 86 Ill. 402

Syllabus

<p>1. MunicipaIi corporations—how far liable for acts of individuals. In a suit against a city to recover for personal injury received, caused by permitting blasting in tbe street by individuals, and thereby frightening and causing a team to run away with the plaintiff, it is error to refuse evidence on the defense that the persons in charge of the work were expressly told by an alderman of the city that no blasting should be done.</p> <p>2. When blasting of stone is done in a city, not by the city, but for and under a contract with a private citizen, and such blasting is done in violation of express directions given by city officers, or done without their knowledge, the city will not be responsible for any injury caused by it. ■ Municipal corporations are not responsible for every unauthorized act that may be done by any one, resulting in injury, directly or indirectly, to persons traveling the streets.</p> <p>3. Instructions—refen-ing to facts having no bearing. In a suit by a person to recover for an injury caused by blasting in the streets and frightening of horses, it is erroneous in the instructions to refer to the condition of the streets as showing negligence, when the condition of the streets had no connection whatever with the injury to the plaintiff.</p> <p>4. Negligence—rule of comparative. An instruction on the question of comparative negligence, that even if the plaintiff was guilty of negligence, that fact does not destroy his right to recover, if the negligence of the defendant was so much greater than that of the plaintiff as to clearly preponderate and outweigh it, is clearly erroneous. The case of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company v. Payne, 49 Ill. 449, so far as it declares any such doctrine, has been expressly overruled in subsequent cases.</p> <p>6. Same—on the part of the plaintiff. Where the plaintiff placed herself in the care of her husband and submitted her personal safety to his keeping, and he left her in a carriage in