Balmer v. City of Beverly Hills

WOOD, J.

Plaintiff obtained a judgment against defendant municipality for damages occasioned when she tripped and fell upon a defective sidewalk in the city of Beverly Hills. The sidewalk in question is in front of a theater building and the parking lot adjacent to it. About ten years before the accident a new sidewalk had been constructed in front of the parking lot in accordance with the provisions of the Improvement Act of 1911. The sidewalk is approximately fourteen feet wide from curb to property line in front of the Fox Wilshire theater building and the adjoining parking lot. Of this width approximately five or six feet adjacent to the property line of the parking lot is old sidewalk, apparently

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installed when the property was originally subdivided and sold to the public. The balance of the width of sidewalk in front of the parking lot between the old sidewalk and the curb was put in under the Improvement Act of 1911 by a private contractor under contract with the Beverly Hills city engineer and street superintendent and was accepted by the defendant city. All of the sidewalk in front of the theater building was apparently installed at the time the building was built, some six or seven years prior to the accident referred to in this action, and the dividing line between this portion of sidewalk and the portion in front of the parking lot is three inches easterly of the property line between the theater building and the parking lot extended. The surface of the new sidewalk in front of the theater building where it joins th° old original sidewalk in front of the parking lot is even with the surface of the old original sidewalk adjacent to the building, but it is not to exceed one inch higher at the outside corner of the old original sidewalk approximately six feet from the building. The surface of the new sidewalk in front of the theater building is flush and level with the surface of the new sidewalk installed under the Improvement Act in front of the parking lot, but the surface of the new sidewalk installed under thei Improvement Act is approximately one inch higher than the surface of the corner of the old original sidewalk where it joins the new sidewalk in front of the theater building. This difference in level between the surface of the old original sidewalk, which is lower at its northwesterly corner, and the surface of the new sidewalk installed under the Improvement Act decreases to a point approximately six or eight feet easterly, where the two surfaces are again exactly level. In other words, the northwesterly corner of the portion of the old original sidewalk in front of the parking lot is depressed below the surface of both the new sidewalk in front of the theater building and the new sidewalk installed under the Improvement Act. The condition just described had existed for a number of years, apparently since the construction of the new sidewalk. No notice, either oral or written, was given to the defendant city or any of its representatives concerning the alleged dangerous condition of the sidewalk.