Phœbe C. Harris vs. City of Quincy

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court1898-06-23

171 Mass. 472

Summary · law.co

Holding. The trial court's exclusion of the photographs and its refusal to direct a verdict were upheld. The judgment for the plaintiff is affirmed.

Phœbe Harris sued the City of Quincy for injuries sustained from slipping on ice-covered sidewalk on a public street. Harris obtained a jury verdict and the city appealed on two grounds. First, the trial judge excluded photographs the city offered as evidence of the sidewalk's condition at the time of the accident, apparently because they were taken the morning after under sunlight rather than in the evening under electric light as existed when the accident occurred. The appellate court found it unclear precisely why the judge rejected the photographs and, noting potential legitimate grounds for exclusion, declined to overturn that evidentiary ruling.

Second, the city challenged the judge's refusal to direct a verdict for the defendant based on the plaintiff's failure to present evidence of the city's property valuation. State law capped liability in such cases at the lesser of four thousand dollars or one-fifth of one percent of the city's valuation. The judge instructed the jury it was reasonable to assume that one-fifth of one percent of the city's valuation exceeded four thousand dollars, effectively making four thousand dollars the operative cap. The appellate court upheld this instruction, holding that the burden fell on the city to prove a lower valuation to reduce its liability, and that the judge properly took judicial notice of the relevant 1895 statute establishing the valuation figure.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

Admissibility of photographs taken after accident showing sidewalk conditions
Burden of proof regarding city property valuation under liability-limiting statute
Judicial notice of valuation statute in personal injury action against municipality

Procedural posture

The plaintiff prevailed at trial and the defendant city appealed by exceptions to certain evidentiary rulings and the court's instructions on damages limitations.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion · public domain

majority opinion

Holmes, J.

This is an action of tort for personal injuries caused by slipping upon rough ice on the sidewalk of a public highway. The plaintiff had a verdict, and the case is here on two exceptions. The first is to the exclusion of photographs, which the defendant offered to show were taken immediately after the accident and truthfully represented the appearance of the sidewalk, except that the photographs were taken by sunlight and the accident happened in the evening when the electric light was shining. From this last qualification we infer that the photographs were not taken before the morning after the accident. The street was a well travelled street. We can not say that the ruling was not based on the failure of the defendant to make out some preliminary matter of fact to the judge’s satisfaction. If, for instance, the photographs were rejected on the ground that it appeared from inspection that they did not represent the slipperiness or the roughness of the ice or the quantity of it in such a way as to be instructive, we could not revise the finding of the judge. Commonwealth v. Bishop, 165 Mass. 148, 152. See Hollenbeck v. Rowley, 8 Allen, 473; Verran v. Baird, 150 Mass. 141; Grilbert v. West End Street Railway, 160 Mass. 403, 405. It is not disclosed with certainty what the ground of rejection was, and, as there were grounds which perhaps might have justified it, we cannot say that it was wrong.

It is provided by Pub. Sts. c. 52, § 20, that in actions like this no person shall recover more than one fifth of one per cent of the State valuation of the city, nor a greater sum than four thousand dollars. The second exception is to a refusal to rule that the plaintiff had not made out her case, because she had offered no evidence of the valuation of the city of Quincy, and to a statement that it was fair for the jury to assume in the absence of evidence that one fifth of one per cent of the valuation would amount to more than four thousand dollars. We are of opinion that the refusal was right, and the statement warranted under the circumstances. The burden of proving a valuation which would cut down its liability below four thousand dollars was upon the defendant, as is shown, if material, by the separation of the section limiting liability from the section imposing it. Commonwealth v. Hart, 11 Cush. 130, 134. Commonwealth v. Fitchburg Railroad, 10 Allen, 189,190. But apart from the burden of proof, the court had a right to take notice of St. 1895, c. 90, which established the valuation in question, and showed that the statement to the jury was correct. See Commonwealth v. Springfield, 7 Mass. 9; State v. Jackson, 39 Maine, 291, 295; Winooski v. Gokey, 49 Vt. 282, 285; State v. Chambers, 93 N. C. 600, 602; Fauntleroy v. Hannibal, 1 Dillon, 118; Ross v. Reddick, 2 Ill. 73; Money v. Turnipseed, 50 Ala. 499, Finally, as the statute referred to is not only the evidence but the source of the valuation in question, an inspection of it shows that the failure to put it in could do the plaintiff no harm, inasmuch as put ting it in could do the defendant no good. In other words the production of the acts of 1895 to the jury would have been the emptiest form, and the omission of it would not be ground for a new trial.

Exceptions overruled.