O'Rourke v. City of Sioux Falls

Citations

• 4 S.D. 47
• 19 L.R.A. 789
• 54 N.W. 1044
• 1893 S.D. LEXIS 39

Syllabus

<p>1. A demurrer to a complaint, on the ground that it does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, is sufficient in form if it state the ground in the language of the statute, without further specification of particular defects.</p> <p>2. There are generally two kinds of duties imposed upon a municipal corporation — one for governmental purposes, to be discharged by the corporation as one of the political divisions of the state; the other' arising from the grant of some special power, in the exercise of which the corporation acts as a legal individual.</p> <p>3. In the enactment of ordinances, and in the appointment of officers and agents for their enforcement, the municipality is exercising a governmental authority, and within its limits acts as the representative of the state.</p> <p>4. In such case municipal officers are regarded as agents, not of the municipal corporation, but of the state, and the municipality is not answerable for the nonfeasance or misfeasance of such officers.</p> <p>5. The fact that a cannon is placed in one of the public streets of a city and there fired, in violation of an ordinance, whereby one is injured, does not make the city liable for such injury, although it was known to the officers of such city that the cannon was to be fired, and they took no steps to prevent it.</p> <p>6. Under such circumstances, the firing having occurred in the evening, an allegation in the complaiut that the city had the power, and had undertaken to exercise it, to light the streets of the city, and that the accident occurred ‘‘by reason of the failure of the city to have a light at or near the place of the accident,” does not sufficiently charge negligence on the part of the city, since the absence of a light at that particular time and place might be accounted for in many ways consisent with freedom from legal negligence.</p> <p>(Syllabus by the court.</p>