Haley v. Mayor of Baltimore

Brune, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from summary judgments in favor of the appellee-defendant, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, a municipal corporation. The appellants-plaintiffs, Iva Lee Haley and Elizabeth Kappes, were each injured, in separate accidents, while descending a column of concrete steps located in Preston Gardens, a public park in the City of Baltimore. These steps were a part of a concrete walk connecting two intersections: one formed by St. Paul Street, Franklin Street and the Orleans Street Viaduct on the upper levels, and the second formed by St. Paul Place and Franklin Street on the lower level.

This concrete walk, including the column of steps where the accidents occurred, traverses a grass plot lying between and running parallel with St. Paul Street and St. Paul Place and furnishes the most direct access .between the aforesaid intersections of public highways. Preston Gardens, including the walkway and steps where the accidents occurred, is (and since 1919 has been) under the supervision of what is now the Department of Recreation and Parks, an agency of the appellee; and the maintenance and improvement of the steps in question are (and since 1922 have been) undertaken by the same Department. Funds derived from a Harbor Loan constituted about 90% of the moneys used for the acquisition of the land now comprised in Preston Gardens and, apparently for the original construction of the Gardens. See City of Baltimore v. Williams, 129 Md. 290 , 99 A. 362 , and a stipulation in the present case that “Harbor Loan Funds were used in the construction of Preston Gardens * * In City of Baltimore v. Williams, just cited, the expenditure of Harbor Loan Funds for ²⁷² the widening of St. Paul Street and for the acquisition by the City of all the land lying between Lexington Street on the south, Hamilton Street on the north, St. Paul Street on the west and what is now St. Paul Place (then Courtland Street) on the east, and for the establishment of squares or open spaces in such part of the area as was not needed for highway purposes, was held proper.

This decision was reached under a statute (Acts of 1910, Ch. 485) authorizing a plan of comprehensive improvement of the Patapsco River waterfront, since St. Paul Street gave access to and from a large part of the harbor of Baltimore. The use of the land not needed for actual highways for squares or open spaces was incidental, but not necessary, to the widening of St. Paul Street. (It was largely a practical solution to a problem created by the steepness of the hill and the comparative narrowness of the space between St. Paul and Courtland Streets. See the opinion of Judge Carroll T. Bond in the Circuit Court No. 2 of Baltimore City contained in the record in City of Baltimore v. Williams, supra.) The walkway and steps where the accidents in question took place are so located as to constitute a straight and direct connecting link between the sidewalks on Franklin Street east and west of St. Paul Place and St. Paul Street.

Each of the appellants, quite independently of the other and at different times, was injured while using the concrete steps in the course of travelling from the upper level to the lower level. The sole question before the lower court and this Court is whether, under the facts before us, the maintenance of these concrete steps leading through Preston Gardens, a public park, is a governmental function or a corporate function. There is no dispute as to the fact that these steps where the accidents occurred are completely within Preston Gardens. The mere physical location of the passageway within the park does not of itself decide the function.

The use of a particular facility is a determining factor. The law of this State is well established that a municipal corporation is not liable in a civil action for any default or neglect in the performance of a purely governmental function, such as the maintenance and management of a public park ²⁷³ for recreational purposes. City of Baltimore v.