Stephens v. City of Macon

Citations

• 83 Mo. 345

Syllabus

<p>1. Municipal Corporations: streets : damages. While a city may temporarily close a street against use for the purpose of permitting improvements by adjacent proprietors, yet it must so do it as to notify the public of its exclusion therefrom, or it will be liable to any person, who, in ignorance of such exclusion, sustains an injury in attempting to use the way.</p> <p>2. Question of Fact. Whether or not a street is so closed as to notify the public of its exclusion is, where the evidence is conflicting, a question for the jury.</p> <p>3. Contributory Negligence. Contributory negligence is a matter of defence.</p> <p>4. City: Street Excavation. The act of a person mating an excavation in a street by permission of the city is the act of the city and no notice to the latter of such excavation is necessary to render it liable to a person sustaining injury therefrom.</p> <p>5. New Trial: newly discovered evidence. The Supreme Court will not interfere with the ruling of the trial court in refusing a new trial, because of newly discovered evidence, except in a case free' from any doubt as to the impropriety of its action, or unless such evidence would probably have changed the result.</p>