Mueller v. City of Milwaukee

83 N.W.2d 735, 1 Wis. 2d 221, 1957 Wisc. LEXIS 357
CourtWisconsin Supreme Court
DecidedJune 4, 1957
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 83 N.W.2d 735 (Mueller v. City of Milwaukee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Wisconsin Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mueller v. City of Milwaukee, 83 N.W.2d 735, 1 Wis. 2d 221, 1957 Wisc. LEXIS 357 (Wis. 1957).

Opinion

Martin, C. J.

At about 10:50 a. m. on February 10, 1954, Mueller was walking south between West Fiebrantz avenue and West Capitol drive along the east sidewalk of North Nineteenth place. He testified that because of the accumulation of melting snow and ice on the sidewalk he walked on an embankment of incrusted ice and snow in the parkway between the sidewalk and curb; that there was a path worn in the embankment which he estimated as approximately six inches high. When he had traveled about 35 feet on the parkway he broke through the snowbank, sustaining [223]*223injuries to his ankle. He was familiar with the sidewalk, having used it in walking to and from his work since 1942.

Appellant contends that there was no proof that an actionable defect existed in the sidewalk abutting the parkway where Mueller fell, that the place of injury was far removed from the defects in the sidewalk.

Survey charts were introduced in evidence giving detailed elevations in the slabs of the sidewalk both north and south of the spot where plaintiff fell. Most of the testimony was directed to the conditions south of the place of injury and the evidence is undisputed that the worst conditions, the differences in pitch and depressions and elevations, existed in the sidewalk in front of 4026. (See defendant’s Exhibit 1 printed herewith; camera on north lotline of 4026 North Nineteenth place, facing south.) This is the portion of the walk toward which Mueller was walking when he fell.

[224]*224Mueller testified that the lawn on either side of the walk in the entire area between 4022 and 4032 was higher than the walk; that there was drainage from the snowbanks onto the walk and that there was no drainage from the sidewalk to the gutter; that the water would accumulate as deep as three inches in places; that “if it was bad, like it was that day I fell, the whole length of the sidewalk was water and snow and ice.”

Jacob Berke, the surveyor who prepared one of the exhibits, also testified that the ground on both sides of the sidewalk was higher than the walk and “naturally water would accumulate on the sidewalk;” it was his opinion that from the elevations shown on the chart “water cannot run off” the sidewalk.

Sidney Voelkel testified the water was shoe depth on February 10th and the public made use of the lawn on either side of the walk or walked into the street around it; that “lots of times I have done it myself because the water was completely over the whole sidewalk and everything.” Voel-kel further testified that he went over the sidewalk early in the morning of February 10th and the water on it was frozen; when he returned in the evening he noticed it was “Slop. You know, slop with underneath slushiness, ice.” Mueller likewise testified that there was ice underneath the water on the sidewalk, and that the slabs pitched in all different directions in the area he sought to avoid by walking on the parkway.

From the evidence in the record the jury had the right to believe that while there may have been some of the sidewalk slabs that were level and dry, most of the walk that Mueller sought to avoid was beneath the level of the adjacent ground, the surface tilting in various directions and covered with an accumulation of water, melting snow, and ice.

Appellant maintains that the walk abutting the embankment where Mueller fell and north thereof was structurally [225]*225sound and not dangerous, relying on the testimony of John Wernette, one of the city’s engineers, but there is nothing in Wernette’s testimony which contradicts the evidence from which the jury could conclude that there was water on most of the sidewalk in question, including that in front of 4032 where, approximately, Mueller fell. Wernette testified in that respect:

“From the investigation I made and the elevations I took of the walk, the slabs south of the point and the worst condition became lower and I believe that the water would run to the south before it would back up to the north to such an extent as to leave three inches of water on that sidewalk in front of 4032.”

According to Wernette, the worst or lowest spot on the sidewalk was between 4022 and 4026 where there was a five and five-eighths-inch difference between two opposite corners of one of the slabs.

The question whether this sidewalk condition constituted an actionable insufficiency or want of repair was a question for the jury. Kawiecka v. Superior (1908), 136 Wis. 613, 118 N. W. 192. The various elevations, depressions, and differences in pitch in the slabs of concrete constituted only one factor to be considered in determining that question. Johnson v. Eau Claire (1912), 149 Wis. 194, 135 N. W. 481; McCormick v. Racine (1938), 227 Wis. 33, 277 N. W. 646; Pias v. Racine (1953), 263 Wis. 504, 58 N. W. (2d) 67; Krejci v. Lojeski (1957), 275 Wis. 20, 80 N. W. (2d) 794.

In this case “other conditions and surrounding circumstances” to be considered included the height of the ground and snowbank levels above the walk, the drainage of melting snow onto the walk and the lack of drainage from the walk to the street, the depth of the water accumulated on the walk and the condition of the sidewalk surface under the water. And, as pointed out above, the jury was entitled to believe [226]*226the testimony that the accumulation of water extended over most of the sidewalk area between 4022 and 4032. It was not required to conclude that the dangerous condition was far removed from the place of injury. In effect, the jury found that the condition existing in the area in question was such as required Mueller to deviate. Otherwise it could not have found the defect causal, since the injury did not occur on the sidewalk.

Appellant suggests that the deviation was for Mueller’s own convenience and the city cannot be held liable for an injury he sustained simply because he did not want to get his feet wet. The evidence required the jury to determine the question of necessity to deviate. It is not for us to say that walking through two to three inches of water involves no more than mere inconvenience or discomfort where the surface beneath is both uneven and icy. Hawes v. Fox Lake (1873), 33 Wis. 438, 442, 443, is distinguishable on its facts. The court there pointed out that the plaintiffs departure from the traveled way was entirely without demand or exigency of any kind; “No necessity for such deviation is claimed or shown, and the contrary thereof was proved at the trial.” Nor can we apply the holding in Goeltz v. Ashland (1890), 75 Wis. 642, 44 N. W. 770, where there was no showing that the sidewalk was defective and the evidence was that the boy drowned when he deviated therefrom to fill a rubber ball and get a drink from the water into which he fell. Appellant also relies on Welsh v. Argyle (1895), 89 Wis. 649, 62 N. W. 517. There the driver of a team of horses chose to cross a stream by a ford during a freshet, instead of using an icy road, and the team was drowned. The icy road constituted no such obstruction to the travel it was meant to accommodate as did this stretch of icy, uneven, water-covered sidewalk to a pedestrian. In any event, as we have said, that was for the consideration of the jury, in the light of all the circumstances existing.

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Bluebook (online)
83 N.W.2d 735, 1 Wis. 2d 221, 1957 Wisc. LEXIS 357, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mueller-v-city-of-milwaukee-wis-1957.