Vandevere v. Kansas City
Vandevere v. Kansas City
Opinion of the Court
Respondent brought this action for loss of the services of his wife and for expense of medical attention to her, alleged to have been caused and rendered necessary by the' negligence of all the defendants.
The wife was struck and injured by a billboard which a gust of wind blew down upon her as. she was walking along the sidewalk on the west side of Walnut street between Eleventh and Twelfth, in front of the property known as 1122 Walnut street in Kansas City, Missouri.
The original petition was against the following named defendants, Kansas City, Lloyd Medes, as owner of the building being erected at the place where the billboard fell, Taylor & Winn, copartners, said to be the contractors erecting the building, and Majestic Theater Company, a corporation, the erector of the billboard. Summons, was issued and service seems to have, been obtained on all defendants. Thereafter, plaintiff dismissed as to the Majestic Theater Com
Thereafter, the defendant Kansas City filed answer charging plaintiff with contributory negligence and setting up that the billboard was blown down by a violent storm and was an act of Gfod. Presumably the other defendants, except Majestic Theater Company, filed answer. At any rate the cause went to trial with all the defendants appearing and being represented, except the Theater Company.
At the close of the evidence the court sustained separate demurrers offered by each appearing defendant and was about to instruct the jury to find for them, when plaintiff took an involuntary nonsuit with leave to move to set the same aside. This motion was after-wards filed and sustained. Whereupon the defendant Kansas City appealed.
The negligence charged against the defendants was in maintaining the billboard, and in permitting it to be maintained, along and on the inside or west portion of the sidewalk near the property line in an insecure and unsafe condition by reason of which it fell on plaintiff’s wife and injured her.
But, aside from this, appellant went to trial without objecting to the escape of the Theater Company or to the fact that no service had1 been obtained upon it after it had been again made a party defendant. And, in so doing, appellant waived the right to have the Theater Company a codefendant with it in accordance with the provisions of section 9801. [Mancuso v. Kansas City, 74 Mo. App. 138, l. c. 149.] Tt is claimed that there was a motion to stay proceedings filed by the city which the court overruled, but there is no such, motion appearing in the bill of exceptions nor any exception to the action of the court thereon.
If it he said that the motion to require the Theater Company to be again made a party defendant was a presentation of the. city’s right under section 9801, certainly the sustaining of that motion and the filing' of an amended petition by plaintiff making the Theater Company and the Construction Company parties- did not prevent the city from thereafter waiving its right
It is urged that there is no proof that Walnut street is a public street of Kansas City. But the case was tried by both sides as if there were no dispute over that issue. The evidence was positive that the injury occurred in Kansas City on Walnut street between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. The photograph in evidence showed a well used, prominent street, and all parties referred to the place where plaintiff was hurt as a street. Both sides assumed the street to be a public street under the control of the city. [Woodson v. Metropolitan St. Ry. Co., 224 Mo. 685.]
It is also said there is no evidence of any negligence on the part of the city. We think there is sufficient to justify the submission of the case to a jury. The billboard was ten feet high and twelve feet long. It was set up in the street or sidewalk and it and the fence against which it stood was used as a barrier to keep .pedestrians away from the front of a building in course of construction. It was merely “tacked” to the fence or building by a small strip, which was entirely too small for such a heavy' object of such wide area exposed to the force of the wind. The gust that blew it down was nothing out of the ordinary. The
It was a dangerous “dead fall” in the street, liable to be sprung at any moment on the unsuspecting traveler.
The judgment setting aside the nonsuit is affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.