Lerner v. City of Philadelphia

Citations

• 221 Pa. 294
• 70 A. 755
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 481

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Municipalities—Streets—Defect in street — Duty of pedestrian — Contributory negligence — Nonsuit.</p> <p>When one abandons the use of his natural senses for the time being and chooses to walk over a pavement in a public street by faith exclusively, and is injured because of some defect in the pavement, he has only himself to blame.</p> <p>When an accident occurs in broad daylight in consequence of an open and exposed defect in a sidewalk, the burden rests upon the party complaining to show conditions outside of himself which prevents him seeing the defect or which would excuse his failure to observe it.</p> <p>One is not required in walking along a traveled highway, to keep his eyes fastened upon the ground continually to discover points of possible danger; nor is it necessary that he should in order to avoid exposed pitfalls lying directly in the path before him; but the law does require that he be observant of where and how he is going so as to avoid dangers which ordinary prudence would disclose.</p> <p>A woman, who in broad daylight, falls in a depression in a sidewalk caused by the displacement of some bricks, cannot recover from the city for her injuries, where there was nothing to prevent her from seeing the depression, except passing people, and where neither she nor her witnesses testify that the crowd was so great as to prevent her from seeing the defect.</p>