Suing the City for a Faulty Sidewalk

Answer:

We represented someone recently, a man in Boise, who stepped on a grate on a sidewalk. It collapsed. He then injured himself pretty significantly. The big question in that case is, does the county, city or whoever is responsible for maintaining that sidewalk ( in this case, it was the Ada County Highway District), do they have notice that there’s a problem, or have their policies not been sufficient to address an issue like this? What you need to determine is if county employees – or ACHD, or whoever you believe is at fault – were on notice that there was a problem that needed to be fixed. If they were on notice of it, and then they don’t do anything about it – put up warnings or cones, or fix the problem, preferably – then they are responsible for their own negligence. If they aren’t on notice, then that becomes a different issue and you’re going to have a hard time proving that they were negligent. These are important matters to address early in a case to figure out if they were on notice and what you can prove. Those are questions that we’d be happy to answer for you, if you want to give us a call, and these are important issues to resolve early in a case.