Hampson v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 09 July 1885
• Citation: 15 R.I. 83,23 A. 732
• Parties: HAMPSON v. TAYLOR, TOWN TREASURER. [1]
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

23 A. 732

15 R.I. 83

HAMPSON v. TAYLOR, TOWN TREASURER. ^[1]

Supreme Court of Rhode Island

July 9, 1885

DURFEE C. J.

This is an action on the case to recover damages from the town of Bristol for injuries to the plaintiff, alleged to have been received by him while walking in one of the streets of said town, in consequence of the neglect of the town to keep said street safe and convenient for travel. The case was tried to a jury in the court of common pleas, when the plaintiff recovered a verdict for $3,500 damages. The case comes here on exceptions to the rulings of the court taken by the defendant. The accident occurred February 5, 1884. The plaintiff left his house between 8 and 9 o'clock A. M to carry some tea to his wife, who worked in a mill. The street was covered by a thin film of ice, caused by rain falling and freezing the previous night. The plaintiff's route was through Thames street, along the west side, which the plaintiff selected as the safer side. Testimony was adduced by the plaintiff tending to show that Thames street on its west side, where it corners on State street, was washed and gullied, with cobble-stones left exposed in the gully, some part of which was nearly a foot deep. The plaintiff made his visit to the mill, and was returning when, stepping on one of the stones so exposed, he slipped and fell, dislocating his right hip and injuring his foot. He adduced testimony to show that the fall would not have occurred but for the gully, or, if it had occurred, would not have seriously injured him. The defendant moved for a nonsuit, which was refused. The defendant alleged exceptions but, upon our intimation that exceptions do not lie for a refusal to nonsuit, they are not pressed. Wentworth v Leonard, 4 Cush. 414; Priest v. Wheeler, 101 Mass. 479; Cutler v. Currier, 54 Me. 81, 90; Girard v. Gettig, 2 Bin. 234; Bank v. Phalen, 12 R.I. 495 The court below, among other instructions to the jury, gave the following, to-wit: "If the sidewalk where the accident happened was so defective as to render the town liable in case an accident had happened by reason of the defect, in the absence of the obstruction caused by the ice, and this accident happened by reason of such defect, and would not have happened but for it, then the town is liable, even though the ice was one of the proximate causes of the accident." The defendant excepted to this ruling. In support of the exception he cites numerous cases, chiefly from Massachusetts and Maine, which hold that the action will not lie where the injury is not the result solely of the defect, but of the defect and another cause, for which the town is not liable, concurring with it. There is, however, a line of cases that maintain a different doctrine, which has been tersely stated thus: "Where two causes combine to produce the injury, both in their nature proximate, the one being the defect in the highway, and the other some occurrence for which neither party is responsible, the...