Sheldon v. City of Los Angeles

McCOMB, J.

From a judgment in favor of plaintiff after trial before the court without a jury in an action to recover damages for injuries sustained by plaintiff as the result of a fall upon an allegedly defective sidewalk in the city of Los Angeles, defendant appeals.

The following is a picture of the scene of the accident hereinafter described:

[692]

The evidence being viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff (respondent), the facts in the instant case are:

The sidewalk on the westerly side of Western Avenue northerly of its intersection with Melrose Avenue is of solid cement and is ten feet wide. At a point five feet from the curb of Western Avenue and 23% feet northerly from Mel-rose Avenue the sidewalk has settled along one of the scoring lines of the cement blocks for a distance of eight feet, leaving a difference in elevation between the adjoining slabs as shown in the picture

supra.

This difference in elevation varies from a maximum of one and one-half inches at the southerly end thereof where it adjoins the iron plate shown in the picture thence tapering to one-third of an inch at about the middle of the depressed length of sidewalk and thence tapering to nothing at the northerly end of the depression.

January 4, 1941, plaintiff alighted from the rear door of a southbound Western Avenue bus, accompanied by her eleven year old grandchild. At the time plaintiff alighted from the bus there was a bench on the sidewalk immediately in front of the depression above described. She walked around the northerly edge of the bench and as she turned south and stepped on the sidewalk her foot twisted and turned to the east, that is, toward the lower portion of the sidewalk created by the depression, and she fell, fracturing her foot. The point at which plaintiff fell was approximately at the point of the greatest difference in elevation between the cement slabs. The depression had existed in the sidewalk for more than one year.

Defendant urges reversal of the judgment on two propositions which will be stated and answered hereunder seriatim.

First: The defect in the sidewalk was a trivial and minor one as a matter of law, for injuries from which defendant city was not liable.