Parker v. Town of New Boston
| Decision Date | 29 June 1918 |
| Citation | 104 A. 345 |
| Parties | PARKER v. TOWN OF NEW BOSTON. |
| Court | New Hampshire Supreme Court |
[Ed. Note.—For other definitions, see Words and Phrases, First and Second Series, Embankment.]
Transferred from Superior Court. Hillsborough County; Allen, Judge.
Action by Henry E. Parker against the town of New Boston. Case transferred, after verdict for plaintiff, on defendant's exceptions. Exceptions overruled.
Case for injuries from a defective highway. Verdict for the plaintiff. The defendant excepted to the admission of a photograph of the plaintiff's vehicle, to the denial of its motions for a nonsuit and a verdict, and to statements of plaintiff's counsel in argument. The facts sufficiently appear in the opinion.
Robert W. Upton and John M. Stark, both of Concord, for plaintiff. James P. Tuttle, of Manchester, for defendant.
The exception to the admission of the photograph as evidence does not raise a question of law. Pritchard v. Austin, 69 N. H. 367, 46 Atl. 188.
The plaintiff met an automobile upon the highway and turned out to pass. In so doing the wheels of his wagon went over the edge of the road, where it had been built up with stones to hold the shoulder. The vertical drop was 10.8 inches, and the edge of the wall was about one foot from the traveled path. The plaintiff was thrown from his wagon and struck on a stone wall beside the road. At the time the space between the traveled part of the way and the wall was filled with vegetation and apparently safe for travel. The defendant's motions for a nonsuit and a verdict were upon the ground that the evidence did not disclose as the cause of the injury a dangerous embankment defectively railed within the meaning of the statute. Laws 1893, c. 59, § 1. The road supported by the vertical wall of stones substantially 11 inches high could be found to be an embankment. Wilder v. Concord, 72 N. H. 259, 264, 56 Atl. 193. There was no railing. Whether the construction presented a dangerous condition, which, obscured by vegetation, was so likely to cause injury in the use of the way that a railing should have been erected was a question of fact for the jury. The opinion of the road builders, called by the defendant, if competent, was not conclusive. The jury had a view, and it was for them to say, upon the testimony and their examination of the road, whether the highway was unsuitable for the travel upon it because of the lack of a railing. Seeton v. Dunbarton, 72 N. H. 269, 271, 56 Atl. 197. It cannot be said that, as in Wilder v. Concord, supra, a railing would obstruct the highway.
The exceptions to argument are not well founded. Whether the inference which couns...
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State v. Mannion
...of the subject was a matter to be decided by the presiding justice. Pritchard v. Austin, 69 N. H. 367, 46 A. 188; Parker v. New Boston, 79 N. H. 54, 104 A. 345; Cross v. Company, 79 N. H. 116, 120, 105 A. 2. A witness called by the state testified that she had met the defendant and his wife......
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State v. Davis
...and could not have produced the verdict. If error, it was harmless. Story v. Railroad, 70 N. H. 364, 387, 48 A. 288; Parker v. New Boston, 79 N. H. 54, 56, 104 A. 345; Williams v. United Box & Lumber Co., 80 N. H. 137, 138, 114 A. 3. The defendant admitted that he had been with the two boys......
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Zogoplos v. Brown
...of facts material upon some issue in the case, or if wholly irrelevant such as are calculated to prejudice the jury" (Parker v. New Boston, 79 N. H. 54, 56, 104 A. 345, 346), this exception is also New trial. All concur. ...
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