County Commissioners v. Collins

Ubneb, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The two exceptions in the record on this appeal are principally concerned with the admissibility of evidence, and its legal sufficiency, to prove acceptance by the defendant municipality-of a street on which the plaintiff was injured when she stumbled and fell over' the elevated edge of a section of concrete; paving on the sidewalk. ' The accident happened before dawn as the plaintiff was walking with her son along Baltimore Avenue in Dundalk, Baltimore County, oh her way to early morning mass. It was proved that the pavement defect which caused her fall had- existed for several years, and that a number of pedestrians had stumbled over it during that period. The dislocated section of concrete projected an inch and a quarter at one end above the level of the sidewalk surface.

The plaintiff testified that she had often-passed along the street before the morning of the accident but had not noticed the irregularity in the pavement, her vision being very poor, and that at the time of her fall she was walking slowly and carefully. It was dark at the place' of the accident, the nearest street light being four hundred feet distant. It is not contended that the evidence was legally insufficient to justify the submission of the case to the jury if a valid acceptance of the street by the defendant was duly proved. While the defendant would not be chargeable as a municipal corporation for injuries resulting from every slight unevenness in the sidewalks of public thoroughfares under its control (Cordish v. Bloom, 138 Md. 81 ), there is a clear and adequate basis for such a liability where, as in this case, a particular defect is shown to have been in fact an impediment to the reasonably safe use of the street, and to have existed so long as to warrant an imputation of notice to the municipality.

Annapolis v. Stallings, 125 Md. 343 . There is, and could be, no contention that the case should have been taken from the ³³⁷ jury on the ground of contributory negligence, as the uncontradicted proof excludes such a theory. But it is urged that the evidence of acceptance by the defendant of Baltimore Avenue in Dundalk was inadmissible and legally insufficient because the deed by which the street was conveyed to the defendant by the Dundalk Company does not have an acceptance endorsed upon it in accordance with section 506 of the Baltimore County Code of 1916 (now section 595 of the Revised Code of 1929), which provides, in part, as follows: “Whenever any owner of property in Baltimore County shall have opened, laid out or graded any avenue or road for the public convenience, and is willing to dedicate the same to public use by a good and sufficient deed duly recorded, the County Commissioners of Baltimore County are authorized to accept the same if, in their opinion, the same be necessary and convenient for public use, and upon such acceptance, which shall be endorsed upon and recorded with the deed, said avenue or road shall be kept in good order and repair as other county roads.” It appears from the record that the defendant in