Section 13.67 Duty

• Library: Tort Law 2016

1. (§13.67) Duty

Municipalities have the primary and nondelegable duty to exercise ordinary care to keep their sidewalks and streets in a reasonably safe condition for travel. Sutton v. Fox Mo. Theatre Co., 336 S.W.2d 85 (Mo. 1960); see also Weil v. Rigali, 980 S.W.2d 89, 91 (Mo. App. E.D. 1998) (an abutting landowner was not liable to a pedestrian who stepped in a hole in a public sidewalk; the landowner had neither made "special use" of the sidewalk nor created the hole); Lahr v. Lamar R-1 Sch. Dist., 951 S.W.2d 754 (Mo. App. S.D. 1997) (the school district had no duty to remove ice from a street controlled by the city; the plaintiff failed to show affirmative special use of public property by a private entity when the evidence showed only that some of the patrons of school events parked in the public street).

A city’s failure to repair or...