Under General Statutes, § 2020, no action can be maintained against a municipality for injury caused by a defective highway, until the notice required by such section has been given; and inasmuch as the giving of the notice is a condition precedent to a right of action, it must be alleged, otherwise the complaint will be held insufficient on demurrer.
PRENTICE, J.
The right to maintain an action against a municipality for the recovery of damages for personal injuries resulting from defective highways, exists only by force of § 2020 of the General Statutes, which defines and limits the right and prescribes the conditions under which it may exist. One of these conditions is the giving to the municipality, within a prescribed time, of a written notice containing certain prescribed information. The giving of this notice is expressly made a condition precedent to any right of action. Until it is given no such right exists. The statute recognizes no equivalents, and it is not competent for the courts to extend the right given beyond the limits fixed by the General Assembly, or to create a right not contemplated by the legislature and contrary to its peremptory mandate. These principles, cogently expressed in Crocker v. Hartford, 66 Conn. 387, 390, 34 A. 98, have been recognized as the law of this State too long and repeatedly to permit of question now. Hoyle v. Putnam, 46 Conn. 56, 61; Fields v. Hartford W. H.R. Co., 54 id. 9, 4 A. 105; Gardner v. New London, 63 Conn. 267, 28 A. 42; Breen v. Cornwall, 73 Conn. 309, 312, 47 A. 322.
As the giving of the required notice was a condition precedent to a right of action, the plaintiff was under the necessity of alleging performance, and his complaint, without such allegation, was open to a demurrer as being insufficient. Gould on Pleading (4th Ed.), Chap. IV, § 13. See Bulkley v. Norwich W. Ry. Co., 81 Conn. 284, 70 A. 1021.