{ "id": 5153154, "name": "City of Chicago v. Anna Hogan", "name_abbreviation": "City of Chicago v. Hogan", "decision_date": "1895-07-05", "docket_number": "", "first_page": "446", "last_page": "448", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "59 Ill. App. 446" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "44 Ill. App. 532", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App.", "case_ids": [ 5063289 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app/44/0532-01" ] }, { "cite": "20 Ill. 445", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 2595813 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/20/0445-01" ] }, { "cite": "83 Ill. 440", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 2660627 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/83/0440-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 337, "char_count": 5262, "ocr_confidence": 0.534, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.2512699601558182e-07, "percentile": 0.6101208989404402 }, "sha256": "9bb3a959bcf4efaa8d1a4981738c1f12c769eb20be46644cc3614c3004a357c2", "simhash": "1:b30a8d227cafc336", "word_count": 931 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T19:53:36.719815+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "City of Chicago v. Anna Hogan." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Hr. Justice Gary\ndelivered the opinion of the Court.\nOgden avenue is a street of the city of Chicago, extending southwesterly from the intersection with Western avenue, a north and south street.\nHear to and southwest of that, intersection, several railway tracks cross Ogden avenue, and in the early spring of 1891, the building of a viaduct to carry Ogden avenue over the railway tracks, was commenced. The year before, a wide sidewalk.had been built southwesterly from Western avenue for a distance of seventy-five feet, along the southeasterly side of Ogden avenue, and terminating abruptly at the southwestern end, at a height of nearly four feet from the ground, and, as we assume for the purpose of this opinion only, with no railing to prevent people from walking off of the end of the sidewalk, and with no attempt to connect it with any further pathway.\nA plank was there, sometimes wholly upon the ground at the end of the sidewalk, and sometimes with one end upon the sidewalk, upon which those who chose could and did, when the plank was up, walk up or down from the ground to the sidewmlk, or from the sidewalk to the ground.\nWho brought that plank and first put it up, the case does not show, though it does appear that a policeman traveling a beat in that neighborhood, put it up two or more times for his own convenience.\nIn this condition of things, the appellee, then a sprightly, intelligent, active girl a. little past her sixteenth birthday, between five and six o\u2019clock of a clear afternoon, on the fifth day of August, 1891, stepped upon the plank to go down to the ground below, when it fell with her, and for the injuries which it is alleged she sustained from that fall, this suit is brought.\nIt does not appear that the city had ever undertaken to furnish the public with any means of passing over the ground lying southwest of the end of that sidewalk. As the abstract states the testimony of one of the witnesses for the appellee, \u201c beyond the end of this sidewalk there was cement and bricks and rubble stones for building stone walls.\u201d\nThe neglect of the political obligation of cities to open streets and build sidewalks, is not followed by responsibility for non-performance. City of Freeport v. Isbell, 83 Ill. 440.\nWhat the city undertakes to do, it must do in a careful and proper manner, but it is discretionary with the city what it shall undertake. Goodrich v. City of Chicago, 20 Ill. 445.\nIt may well be that although this sidewalk was built by the owner of the lots abutting upon it, yet the city permitting it, was under a duty, not to extend, but to exercise care that so much as was built should be reasonably safe; and had injury resulted from absence of a guard or railing at the end, the city might have been responsible. But that is not this case. The appellee did not, unwarned, walk off and fall, but took a substitute for a sidewalk as a path for further progress.\nThe case shows that the construction of the viaduct was then in progress, and that the approach to it began to rise from the end of the sidewalk. During the interruption of travel necessary in that construction, the duty of the city to furnish a sidewalk was suspended (Osgood v. City of Chicago, 44 Ill. App. 532); and people who chose the direct course without a sidewalk, instead of one more circuitous, took the risk.\nUpon this single ground, that no duty incumbent upon the city was neglected, and without reference to the other questions\u2014due care by appellee, excessive damages, imposition as to the extent of injury\u2014the judgment must be reversed without remanding.\nAs the justification for not remanding, we will enter on the record that no facts shown by this record tend to raise any duty by the city with reference to the means of descent from the sidewalk.", "type": "majority", "author": "Hr. Justice Gary" } ], "attorneys": [ "Roy O. West, City Attorney, for appellant; George A. Trude and Benjamin F. Richolson, of counsel.", "Wing, Barge & Leach, attorneys for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "City of Chicago v. Anna Hogan.\n1. Cities and Villages\u2014Neglect to Build Sidewalks\u2014Responsibility. \u2014The neglect of the obligation of a city to open streets and build sidewalks is not followed by responsibility for non-perfOrmance.\n\u2022 2. Same\u2014What is Undertaken Must be Done Well.\u2014What a city undertakes to do it must do in a careful and proper manner, but it is discretionary what it shall undertake.\n3. Personal Injuries\u2014Where no= Responsibility Exists.\u2014The city authorities having constructed a sidewalk terminating abruptly at a height of nearly four feet from the ground, at a place where a viaduct was in the course of construction, and with no railing to prevent people from walking off at the end and with no attempt to connect it with any further pathway, some person (it is not shown who) placed a plank, one end on the sidewalk and the other upon the ground so that persons might walk-up from the ground or down from the sidewalk as occasion might require. The plaintiff stepped from the sidewalk upon the \u2022plank to go down to the ground, when it fell and she was injured. Held that no recovery could be had.\nTrespass on the Case, for personal injuries. Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County; the Hon. Edward F. Dunne, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the March term, 1895.\nReversed.\nOpinion filed July 5, 1895.\nRoy O. West, City Attorney, for appellant; George A. Trude and Benjamin F. Richolson, of counsel.\nWing, Barge & Leach, attorneys for appellee." }, "file_name": "0446-01", "first_page_order": 444, "last_page_order": 446 }