Lowell v. Watertown Tp.

Decision Date19 November 1885
Citation25 N.W. 517,58 Mich. 568
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
PartiesLOWELL v. TOWNSHIP OF WATERTOWN.

Error to Clinton.

H.J Patterson and Spaulding & Barker, for plaintiff.

Cook &amp Daboll, for defendant and appellant.

CHAMPLIN J.

This action was brought to recover damages which plaintiff suffered by reason of a defect in a public highway, which it was the duty of defendant to keep in repair.

It is conceded that the highway was defective, and that the defendant was negligent in not having repaired the same, and that plaintiff was injured by reason of such defect, and the only question raised in the record is whether the testimony of plaintiff himself did not show that he was guilty of such contributory negligence as should preclude him from recovering. The testimony showed that the accident happened on a dark and rainy night, while he was walking along the highway on his return from a neighbor's. He was traveling north in the carriage track. On the west side of the highway was a sidewalk. He was very familiar with the locality, and had for a long time known of the defect, which consisted of a hole about a foot square made for the purpose of allowing water from the highway to pass into an underground drain constructed beneath the ditch of the west side of the highway. Plaintiff testified that he was thinking of this hole from the time he crossed the bridge overlooking Glass river until he stepped into it; that he was attempting to pass from the traveled part of the highway to the sidewalk for the purpose of looking...

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