Taylor v. Mayor of Cumberland

Bryan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Act of 1878, chapter 484, amended the charter of the City of Cumberland. By the fortieth section of this statute it is provided that the City Council “may pass ordinances to remove all nuisances and obstructions from the streets, lanes and alleys within the limits of the city; ” and “for the preservation of peace and good order, securing persons and property from violence, danger, or destruction.” It is shown by the record that the City Council by ordinance, section 5, of chapter 13, of theCity Code, prohibited, under the penalty of a fine, “any sport, play or exercise that might produce bodily injury, or endanger property on any street, square, or alley within the city limits.” ⁷² The appellant (who was plaintiff below) was knocked down and injured while crossing a sidewalk on one of the streets of the city. The injury was inflicted by a sled, on which, a number of boys were coasting on the snow, which, at the time covered the street and the sidewalks.

It was stated in the evidence that for several days previously to the occurrence the street in question and the sidewalks had been covered with snow and ice, and that crowds of men, boys and girls sometimes with sleds, to the number of fifty or sixty, congregated on the street and coasted thereon, and that many of the sleds were composed of two ordinary sleds joined together with a plank and were from fifteen to twenty feet long, and were occupied by six or eight persons and that the sleds were run down the street at a rapid and dangerous rate of speed. This sport as thus described, was a nuisance of a very serious character. It is well settled that the corporation was under an obligation to exercise for the public good the powers conferred on it by its charter to prevent nuisances, and to protect persons and property ; and that this duty is not discharged by merely passing ordinances. It is not relieved from responsibility unless there has been a vigorous effort to enforce them.

Mayor, &c., of Baltimore vs. Marriott, 9 Md., 160 . It was held in this case that a municipal corporation having power by its charter to prevent and remove nuisances would be discharged from responsibity for them, if they could not be prevented or removed by ordinary and reasonable care and diligence ; and it was also held