“Ah, no! I cannot do so with success.[21] It’s a case of damnum absque injuria.”
“Ho! ho!” laughed my companion; “strong language; but no wonder.”
“If the owner of the house had left the ice and snow there for an unusual and unreasonable time after he knew of its presence and might have removed it, he probably would have been liable to me,[22] or, if that old awning had fallen on me,[23] or if that lamp hanging over the Sol’s Arms’ door had lighted on my crown, producing an extra bump, for the edification of Fowler and Wells and the savants of that ilk, I might have got something in the first case out of the city; in the other from the landlord.[24] Or if one of those barrels had rolled out of that warehouse, and, thumping against your legs, had brought you down, you might have sued the merchant.”[25]
“Look at that poor old woman; she will come to grief most assuredly.”
Before us toddled an aged granny, assisting her septuagenarian extremities with an antique looking umbrella, of no color known to this life. It was of a “flabby habit of waist, and seemed to be in need of stays, looking as if it had served the old dame for long years as a cupboard at home, as a carpet-bag abroad.”
“So feeble a person should not be out in such slippery weather unattended;[26] people should exercise common prudence. One who has poor sight should take greater care in walking the streets than one in full enjoyment of her faculties.”[27]
“I fancy the least obstacle or hole would upset her,” said Tom.
“And if she did stumble over a small impediment she could not sue the city for damages. So the court held where a man fell over the hinge of a trap-door projecting a couple of inches above the sidewalk in a village.[28] But the degree of repair in which the walks must be kept depends considerably upon the locality; one may reasonably expect better pavements in a city than in a village; and so in Boston where an iron box four inches square, set in a sidewalk by a gas company, had a rim projecting an inch above the level, the city was held responsible for injuries caused by it.”[29]
“If she did meet with an accident and was held entitled to damage, what would she get in hard cash?” asked Jones.
“’Tis impossible to say. It would depend upon so many things. In one case where an old man of seventy, who was very feeble, fell at night into an opening for a drain in the sidewalk, which was covered with boards laid at right angles with the others and projecting some two inches, over which he stumbled, the jury gave $4,000 damages; but the court held that excessive, as the old man was insolvent and incapable of much labor.”[30]