Roy v. Kansas City

224 S.W. 132, 204 Mo. App. 332, 1920 Mo. App. LEXIS 43
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 26, 1920
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 224 S.W. 132 (Roy v. Kansas City) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Roy v. Kansas City, 224 S.W. 132, 204 Mo. App. 332, 1920 Mo. App. LEXIS 43 (Mo. Ct. App. 1920).

Opinion

BLAND, J.

TMs is an action for damages for persopa! injuries. Plaintiff recovered a verdict and judgment in the sum of $5000 and defendant has appealed.

The facts show that at the time of the accident, which occurred on August 17, 1917, about 1:00 A. M. plaintiff *334 was riding as a passenger in a hired Ford automobile. The .automobile was proceeding eastward on the 23rd Street viaduct in Kansas City, Kansas, when it collided with a pile of lumber left on the driveway of the viaduct by the defendant. The Kansas Avenue viaduct in Kansas City, Kansas, connects with the 23rd Street traffic way or viaduct and all of the latter is eventually to be in Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas Avenue viaduct runs east and west, the eastern end being at the State Line. The purpose of Kansas City, Missouri, was to construct a permanent viaduct along 23rd Street to join with the Kansas Avenue viaduct, which had been completed, to malee one entire traffic w>ay, carrying the traffic between the two cities. At the-time plaintiff was injured the Kansas City, Missouri, part of the permanent structure had not been started and the traffic from the Kansas Avenue viaduct w,as carried from its eastern end to the higher ground in Kansas City, Müssouri, some distance to the east, by means of a temporary wooden approach, referred to. in the evidence as the 2'3rd Street viaduct. The temporary structure did not join, end to end, with the permanent structure but entered it from the north side, a few feet west of the pastern end of the permanent structure. Across the eastern end of the permanent structure was a fence running diagonally in a southwesterly and northwesterly direction at an angle of 45 degrees. There was also a fence on each side of the temporary wooden structure. The fence on the south side of the temporary structure joined with the fence along the eastern end of the permanent structure. The junction of these fences created a comer. The pile of lumber against which the automobile ran was abiout four feet high, extended out from the south fence of the temporary wooden structure three or four feet and w;as situated about two feet east of this comer. The night was dark and foggy. There was no light of any kind on the pile of lumber nor anywhere on the viaduct that would cast any light upon the lumber. The pile of lumber had been placed by the defendant for the purpose of malting repairs on *335 its part of the viaduct, or the temporary wooden structure. The place where the accident occurred was a few feet across the State Line in the city of Kansas City, Kansas.

At the time of the accident plaintiff with her brothers and another companion was being taken home from a social gathering in Kansas City, Kansas, in the automobile which was being driven by one Charles Burley. The automobile at the time was proceeding at the rate of eight or ten miles per hour. The automobile had come across the Kansas Avenue viaduct and made the turn into the 23rd Street viaduct around the comer, when it suddenly and without warning ran into the west end of the pile of lumber, upsetting the car and injuring plaintiff in the manner hereinafter set out.

The first point urged by the defendant is that the court should have given its instruction in the nature of a demurrer to the evidence. There was'no notice served upon the city and defendant insists that this action con-not be brought for the reason that notice as provided under the statute (Laws of 1913, p. .545') was not giveh. The statute provides, — ■

“No action shall be maintained against any city . . . on account of any injuries growing out of .any defect in the condition of any bridge, boulevard, street, sidewalk or thoroughfare in said city, until notice shall first have been given in writing . . ■ . within ninety days of the occurrence.”

The statute provides that the notice shall be required when the occurrence happens in the city affected. The occurrence out of which this suit arose did not happen within the limits of defendant city but outside of the same, and as the statute does not provide for notice under such circumstances, we are not justified in reading into- the statute language that is not found therein in . order to bring the occurrence out of which this action arose within the terms of the statute. This makes it unnecessary for us to decide whether the pile of lumber *336 in controversy constituted “a defect in, the condition” of the viaduct within the meaning of the statute.

It is claimed that if the accident happened outside of the city limits of Kansas City, Missouri, there was no duty upon the defendant in reference to the construction and maintenance of the place where the accident occurred as a public thoroughfare. Section 1, article 1, of defendant’s charter gives the city authority to acquire “and hold and use lands or other property, either within or outside of the corporate limits of the city, for . . . viaducts, bridges,” etc., and Clause 13, section 1, article 3, of said charter empowers the city “to establish, erect and keep' in repair bridges, culverts, sewers, sewer outlets within or outside the limits of the city.” The city constructed this viaduct under these provisions of its charter. It is insisted that these provisions of the charter do not impose upon the city a libility for its negligence, if any, in the construction or maintenance of a thoroughfare or viaduct in the State of Kansas. That part of the petition upon which the case was tried and submitted does not proceed upon the theory that it was the duty of the defendant to keep the viaduct and place of the accident in a state of repair but that defendant was guilty of positive acts of negligence of commission in leaving an unlighted pile of lumber upon a thoroughfare built and maintained by it for use by the public. That the city is liable for such negligence is beyond question. [City Council of Augusta v. Mackey, 113 Ga. 64, 69; City Council of Augusta v. Owens, 111 Ga. 464, 475, 476; Dooley v. The City of Kansas, 82 Mo. 444; Allison v. City of Richmond, 51 Mo. App. 133, 137.]

It will be seen that by reason of the provisions of the city charter quoted, supra,' the city in erecting and reipairing its viaduct was acting within the authority conferred upon it by law, and tb,at its acts were not ultravires even if a portion of such viaduct was without the limits of the city. It is, therefore; unnecessary for us to discuss the subject of the liability of municipalities for negligence in respect to their ultra vires acts. This *337 subject will be found treated in Jones on Negligence of Mlunieipal Corporations, p. 341, et seq. The case of Stealey v. Kansas City, 179 Mo. 400, and other cases cited under this head by the defendant are not in point. In the Stealey case it was attempted to hold the city liable for its failure to keep in repair a sidewalk outside of the city limits. As before stated, in this case the acts complained of are not those of omission but commission.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Jackson ex rel. Jackson v. City of St. Louis
422 S.W.2d 45 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1967)
State Unemployment Compensation Commission v. Brown
358 P.2d 502 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1960)
Eickmann v. St. Louis Public Service Co.
253 S.W.2d 122 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1952)
Tharp v. Unemployment Compensation Commission
121 P.2d 172 (Wyoming Supreme Court, 1942)
Stocker v. City of Richmond Heights
132 S.W.2d 1116 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1939)
Pandjiris v. Oliver Cadillac Co.
98 S.W.2d 969 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1936)
Brown v. City of Marshall
71 S.W.2d 856 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1934)
Dohring v. Kansas City.
71 S.W.2d 170 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1934)
Stevens v. Westport Laundry Co.
25 S.W.2d 491 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1930)
State Ex Rel. State Highway Commission v. Young
23 S.W.2d 130 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1929)
Klaber v. Kansas City, Missouri
17 S.W.2d 621 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1929)
Ott v. Stone.
29 S.W.2d 726 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1927)
Wechsler v. Davis
239 S.W. 554 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1922)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
224 S.W. 132, 204 Mo. App. 332, 1920 Mo. App. LEXIS 43, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roy-v-kansas-city-moctapp-1920.