{
  "id": 8604148,
  "name": "MRS. LASENIA MURCHISON v. WASHINGTON TERRACE APARTMENTS, INCORPORATED, a Corporation",
  "name_abbreviation": "Murchison v. Washington Terrace Apartments, Inc.",
  "decision_date": "1956-11-21",
  "docket_number": "",
  "first_page": "72",
  "last_page": "73",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "245 N.C. 72"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C.",
    "id": 9292,
    "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 5,
    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T14:55:29.608424+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "JohnsoN, J., not sitting."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "MRS. LASENIA MURCHISON v. WASHINGTON TERRACE APARTMENTS, INCORPORATED, a Corporation."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "PeR Curiam.\nThe evidence shows that \u201cA\u201d Street is paved to a width of ten feet. There are no sidewalks paralleling the street, but there are sidewalks leading from the street to the various apartment houses. Where plaintiff fell, the sidewalk is approximately one and one-half inches higher than \u201cA\u201d Street. Plaintiff describes her fall and its cause thus: \u201cI went out of the back door of my sister\u2019s house, with my four-year-old son on my left and I was holding his hand with my left hand \u2014 went through her back yard \u2014 when I got to \u2018A\u2019 Street, I turned to my left and went about 60 feet before I was to turn to go on toward home. I attempted to turn on A Street to go up the sidewalk that leads to apartments A-ll and A-12, and just as I entered the sidewalk, I stepped on the sidewalk with my left foot and my right foot tripped on a raised portion of the sidewalk, and I fell about 2 or 3 feet up the sidewalk and fell on this glass and cut my hand very seriously.\u201d\nTo elevate a sidewalk an inch or two above the street is almost universally done. Such method of construction does not indicate negligence. That plaintiff should, in stepping from the street to the sidewalk, stumble and fall because the sidewalk was an inch or two higher than the street does not indicate that defendant was in any wise negligent. That plaintiff, in falling, should cut her hand is unfortunate but cannot impose any responsibility on the defendant. Plaintiff offered no evidence tending to show when or how the glass on which she cut her hand got there. The judgment is\nAffirmed.\nJohnsoN, J., not sitting.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "PeR Curiam."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "E. A. Solomon, Jr., and Mordecai, Mills & Parker for plaintiff appellant.",
      "Ruark, Young & Moore for defendant appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "MRS. LASENIA MURCHISON v. WASHINGTON TERRACE APARTMENTS, INCORPORATED, a Corporation.\n(Filed 21 November, 1956.)\nLandlord and Tenant \u00a7 11\u2014\nIn an action against a corporation maintaining apartments witb adjacent streets and sidewalks, evidence that plaintiff, in walking from tbe street along a sidewalk to an apartment, tripped at tbe slight elevation of tbe sidewalk and fell to ber injury, is insufficient to be submitted to tbe jury on tbe issue of negligence, since'tbe construction of a sidewalk some inch or two above tbe street level is customary.\nJohnson, J., not sitting.\nAppeal by plaintiff from Hobgood, J., first April 1956 Term of Watch\nPlaintiff seeks to recover damages resulting from a fall on the premises of defendant. She alleges that defendant owned and operated in excess of two hundred apartments in the area in Raleigh known as Washington Terrace Apartments, one of which was occupied by plaintiff. She alleges that defendant had constructed and maintained streets and sidewalks within the apartment area for the use and convenience of the occupants of the apartments. She further alleges that on the night of 1 December, 1954, she visited her sister, and when returning home via \u201cA\u201d Street, one of the streets maintained by defendant for the benefit of its tenants and their guests, she \u201cproceeded across said \u2018A\u2019 Street and reached the north side of the same at a point where one of defendant\u2019s sidewalks abuts on said \u2018A\u2019 Street, she stepped up to proceed on the sidewalk, but tripped and fell on same because of a protrusion or raised portion of said sidewalk, as it adjoined \u2018A\u2019 Street. That in falling plaintiff struck her left hand upon a sharp glass jar lying upon said sidewalk and thereby seriously and permanently injured her left hand and arm . . .\u201d She alleges that defendant negligently permitted the sidewalk to become and remain in an unsafe and dangerous condition, and with knowledge of this condition failed to repair it.\nAt the conclusion of plaintiff\u2019s evidence, defendant\u2019s motion for non-suit was allowed. Plaintiff appealed.\nE. A. Solomon, Jr., and Mordecai, Mills & Parker for plaintiff appellant.\nRuark, Young & Moore for defendant appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0072-01",
  "first_page_order": 110,
  "last_page_order": 111
}