Dunkin v. City of Hoquiam

Citations

• 56 Wash. 47
• 105 P. 149
• 1909 Wash. LEXIS 844

Syllabus

<p>Municipal Corporations — Defect in Streets — Complaint. In an action against a city for personal injuries sustained in running upon an obstruction in a street, the complaint need not state wbat officer was negligent.</p> <p>Damages — Pleading—Complaint. In an action for personal injuries, the complaint is sufficiently definite where it alleges that plaintiff’s right knee was “skinned and bruised.”</p> <p>Appeal — Harmless Error — Municipal Corporations — Claims— Limit of Amount. In an action for personal injuries alleged in the complaint at $26,230, after the filing of a claim against a city for only $10,000, it is not prejudicial error to refuse to strike out all claims in excess of $10,000, where the verdict was for the sum of $7,500.</p> <p>Municipal Corporations — Streets—Obstructions—Negligence— Contributory Negligence. In an action by a bicyclist, against a city for personal injuries sustained by running against an obstruction in the street, the negligence of the city and the contributory negligence of the plaintiff is for the jury, where it appears that piles of soft mud, two feet high, from the construction of a sewer, were allowed to remain in a street for three days and were dangerous to all traveling in vehicles, that the night was dark and there were no lights or barriers, and the plaintiff, who was infirm, had no light on his bicycle.</p> <p>Damages — Personal Injuries — Excessive Verdict. A verdict for $7,500 for personal injuries is not excessive where it appears that the plaintiff, twenty-nine years of age, with a hand that had been broken and which .was nearly normal, and who had been subjected to an operation closing the lower bowels and making an artificial anus in his side, under partial control, was able to do light work, and earned $2.50 a day grinding knives in a planing mill, and by reason of a, fall from his bicycle, the knuckles of his hand were rebroken, and the injury made permanent, his other trouble increased, the bowel protruding an