Steverson v. Orangeburg County

• Decision Date: 14 March 1924
• Docket Number: 11450.
• Citation: 121 S.E. 789,128 S.C. 335
• Parties: STEVERSON ET AL. v. ORANGEBURG COUNTY.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

121 S.E. 789

128 S.C. 335

STEVERSON ET AL. v. ORANGEBURG COUNTY.

No. 11450.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

March 14, 1924

Appeal from Common Pleas Circuit Court of Orangeburg County; I. W Bowman, Judge.

Separate actions by S. L. Steverson and another against Orangeburg County, consolidated for trial. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Cothran J., dissenting.

L. K Sturkie, of Orangeburg, for appellant.

Julian S. Wolfe and J. Leroy Dukes, both of Orangeburg, for respondents.

FRASER J.

These two cases involved the same questions, and were heard on circuit and in this court together.

In Orangeburg county a public highway ran from Neeces to Springfield. There was a neighborhood road that connected with the public highway. The public highway had a ditch on either side. At the intersection of these two roads a galvanized pipe was put in the ditch and dirt thrown over it. The pipe was defective, and a horse and mule belonging to the plaintiffs were injured. The county was sued and denied liability on the ground that the crossing was made only for the benefit of those who used the neighborhood road. The judgments were for the plaintiffs, and the defendant appealed. All the testimony showed that the animals were injured by the defective piping used to prevent the interruption of the flow of the water in the ditch, constructed and used to drain the public road.

I. The defendant moved for directed verdicts. His honor could not have granted these motions. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that the county dug its ditches within its right of way. There was abundant evidence that the place of the injury was within the public road. Of course, if the injury had been in the neighborhood road, the county would not have been liable under the authorities cited by the appellant, but there was no such evidence. The highway was not built solely for the benefit of people living at Neeces and Springfield. The county cannot dig ditches or build fences along its highway and exclude the people living along the way from the use of the highway. There must be crossings, and the county has exclusive control of that portion that is upon the public highway. The traveler coming to a public highway, intending to travel thereon, is using the public highway as a public highway from the time he crosses the line until he leaves it. In both cases the animals were injured by defective pipes furnished by the county, while they were on the public highway, using it as a public highway. The exceptions raising this question are overruled.

II. The other assignment of error is that his honor refused to tell a juror where the line of the highway ran. That was, in the most favorable view to the appellant, a question of fact upon which his honor could express no opinion.

The judgment appealed from is affirmed.

WATTS and MARION, JJ., concur.

COTHRAN J. (dissenting).

I cannot distinguish this case from State v. Mellette, 106 S.C. 224, 91 S.E. 4, which in my opinion is controlling in favor of the appellant. In that case the defendant was indicted for obstructing a neighborhood road by removing a bridge which connected the neighborhood road with a public highway, exactly the situation which is presented in the case at bar, except that in the one case the drainage ditch on the side of and parallel with the highway was spanned by a bridge, and in the other a galvanized iron pipe constituted a culvert, which was covered with earth and afforded passage from the terminus of the neighborhood road to the highway, or vice versa.

In the Mellette Case the question was whether or not the bridge was a part of the public...