HOUSTON - The 14th Court of Appeals today affirmed a ruling denying the city of Houston’s summary judgment motions in a suit alleging a pedestrian fell into a water utility hole in a sidewalk in downtown.
Court records show Christyn Breckenridge filed her suit in 2019, asserting that she was walking on a pedestrian sidewalk on Pease Street in downtown when she “stepped into an uncovered hole in a pedestrian sidewalk, causing her foot, ankle, and heel to get stuck in the hole and fall.”
Breckenridge alleged that the “uncovered hole in the pedestrian sidewalk constituted a special defect.”
Court records show the city filed multiple motions for summary judgment.
According to the 14th Court’s opinion, the trial court denied the city’s second traditional motion for final summary judgment on official immunity and the city’s first amended hybrid traditional and no-evidence motion for final summary judgment on immunity, causation and damages.
On appeal, the city claimed that it discharged its duty of care to warn of the special defect because an inspector placed a cone inside the water utility hole on Feb. 13, 2018.
“It is undisputed that there was no cone or anything else that could have warned pedestrians of the water utility hole on July 26, 2018, when Breckenridge stepped into the hole and fell,” the opinion states. “In its brief, the City provides no explanation or authority to support its assertion that it conclusively warned pedestrians of the hole because Kennedy allegedly placed a cone weighing about two to three pounds in the hole almost six months before Breckenridge fell.
“Because Breckenridge presented evidence that no warning cone was present on the day of the accident, we conclude that the City failed to establish that it is entitled to summary judgment because a genuine fact issue exists whether it discharged its duty of care by warning of the danger the water utility hole posed.”
Appeals case No. 14-21-00086-CV