KinSource - Tale of the Week - Queer Suits and Claims City Is Obliged to Fight

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Globe, March 8, 1903, p. 18

Queer Suits and Claims City Is Obliged to Fight

A bruised toe worth $20,000 has steel stock on a rising market skinned to death, but it was an over-confident individual who tried to engineer an even money deal with the city for its possession. A formidable looking document with "whereas" and "the said" sprinkled liberally throughout its verbiage backed up the genuineness of the scraped member, but the records in Corporation Attorney Markham's office say all that it got him was $10. He compromised.

It is an odd lot that think the municipality is responsible and should pay for their misfortunes, but the grievances some of them offer are hardly a marker to the claim made by one woman who thought the city should give her $5,000 for spraining her arm while throwing sticks at a neighbor's chickens that had invaded her yard. If she had been given the protection she was entitled to, she explained to the city's legal representative, it would have never happened.

The legal department of St. Paul stands a barrier between those who have a grievance that money only will satisfy and the city's strong box.

Some Queer Claims.

The nerviest man of the lot was the one who called on the chief of the department and wanted to exchange for $5 a coat that a passing carriage had splashed mud on, and the coolest, the one who threatened to sue if he were not immediately accommodated with $5,000 because of a barked shin sustained by carelessly running into one of the city's ash barrels. He was looking the other way and did not notice it.

Broken sidewalk planks in the spring and summer and icy kopjes in the late fall and winter constitute the basis of the majority of the suits brought against the city in a year, but it is a significant fact that out of claims last year, mostly from these causes, amounting to nearly $300,000, only $6,000 was realized by those who could show contributory negligence on the part of the city. Broken and rotten sidewalk planks have been responsible for more suits against the city than any other cause.

A sprained ankle is the commonest of complaints, for to it can be ascribed paralysis of the muscles, floating kidneys, poor eyesight, and, as one claimant declared in his bill of particulars, a tendency to baldness. An injury of this kind is worth $5,000 any day of the year when the city is the defendant, but there are few that have realized such an amount so far.

Broken Limbs Preferred.

A broken limb -- well, that is enough to give any lawyer in the business palpatation of the heart. On a compromise he ought to realize $500. And, if a suit was necessary he would never think of asking less than $25,000. Floating kidneys and strained muscles have no business here, only permanent injuries of the most painful kind exist in his imagination.

Stubbed toes and barked shins figure extensively in the claims made last year, but their owners realized little.

Bluff if you can, compromise if you must, but fight if there is a chance, is a standing rule in the city legal department, and it is its faithful observance that keeps the city's strong box intact from raids. All kinds of subterfuges are made to reduce its weight, but it is a case of law and brains against cupidity, and the former generally wins.

Every case filed against the city, especially if it is a personal injury claim, receives immediate attention from the department, and the ink announcing its filing is hardly dry before the machinery of the department is at work and the plaintiff's allegations are being quietly investigated. The police are the most important factors in this work. They work quietly, and often find evidence to show that the city is wholly irresponsible for the injury, and the first thing the claimant knows he is facing a mass of indisputable evidence that does not leave him a leg to stand upon.

Deception Was Exposed.

Sometimes the city is deceived, as it was in the case of the suit of a West sider who demanded $5,000 because of injuries sustained by a fall on a sidewalk. Everything seemed all right, a compromise for $300 was effected and the city was about to pay over the money, when a quarrel ensued between the victim and a friend interested in the conspirancy. The quarrel developed the fact that the West sider had received his injuries in a drunken brawl and the payment of the money was promptly stopped.

Many a small claim is paid out that the department suspects. Juries are mighty uncertain and a compromise is effected if possible. In these petty cases the owners of stubbed toes, barked shins and bruised bodies generally figure and they, as a rule, are not unwilling to settle for a small figure.

A Vexatious Suit.

Probably the most vexatious suit the city ever defended was the one brought by a number of young people who figured in a tally-ho accident. The driver let the horses go of their own free will, and the first thing the occupants knew they were floundering in a ditch. From one small suit for damages, the number grew to a dozen, until the city was soon facing claims aggregating nearly $50,000. One it lost and the others it won, but these litigants gave the department more work than any personal injury suit that ever came to its attention.

It is a rule that every claimant in a personal injury case must undergo medical examination, and this is attended to by the city by a physician in the city's employ. No fee is paid beyond the physician's salary, but it is an excellent precaution, for it saves the city a sum of money that it would be otherwise be muleted out of. Broken limbs often prove to be of ancient date, physical imperfections are sometimes traced to other causes, and the victim's defense shattered.

Last year over 200 cases received the attention of the legal department and more than one-half of them were personal injury cases. Only $6,000 was realized by the claimants, but think what the others didn't succeed in getting -- nearly $300,000.