Perkins v. Inhabitants of Fayette

• Decision Date: 03 April 1878
• Citation: 68 Me. 152
• Parties: MARGARET PERKINS v. INHABITANTS OF FAYETTE.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

68 Me. 152

MARGARET PERKINS v. INHABITANTS OF FAYETTE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

April 3, 1878

ON EXCEPTIONS.

CASE for personal injuries from defective highway, received May 27, 1873.

Writ dated January 9, 1875. The alleged obstruction was a large stone, which the plaintiff claimed, and there was evidence tending to show, had been blasted and was lying within the located limits of the road and outside the wrought part. The side of the stone next the wrought part was on a line with the outside of the ditch and about two feet from the wrought part, which at this point was in good condition. The defendants claimed, and introduced evidence tending to show that the rock was naturally there. The plaintiff was riding in a single horse wagon with her son, who was driving, and after passing several rods beyond the rock, some cows with boards on their horns came to the top of a hill from an opposite direction, when the horse became suddenly frightened and attempted to turn about in the road. The driver jumped from the wagon, and seizing the rein near the bit, prevented the horse from turning short about, but could not control him. The horse turned out of the wrought part onto the side between the ditch and the fence, and after going some four or five rods, in returning into the wrought part of the road the driver still holding by the rein, one of the forward wheels struck the rock, by which the wagon was upset and the plaintiff thrown out and severely hurt.

The plaintiff's counsel after the charge requested the following instructions:

" If the plaintiff's horse was uncontrollable and was running, without any fault of the driver, and not in consequence of any deficiency of the carriage or harness, or any vicious habits of the horse, and the highway was defective, the town having notice of the defect, and the injury resulted from such defect, the defendants would be liable."

" Public rights of travel are not restricted to the prepared and usually traveled path, but citizens have a right to travel over the whole width of the way as laid out, without being subjected to other or greater dangers than may be presented by natural obstacles, or those necessarily occasioned by making and repairing the traveled path."

" Stones, timbers or other obstacles unnecessarily placed within the limits of the road, outside of the traveled path, are as unlawfully there as they would be in the traveled path."

The requested instructions were refused, the presiding justice having covered the points by contrary instructions, or such as were less favorable to the plaintiff. The instructions specially objected to in the argument appear in the opinion. The verdict was for the defendants; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions.

E. O. Bean, for the plaintiff, asked the court to review the decision in Moulton v. Sanford, 51 Me. 127.

D. C. Robinson, for the defendants.

PETERS J.

A question arose at the trial as to what extent towns were responsible for injuries to travelers, occasioned by ??r teams coming in collision with obstructions on the side of the road beyond the traveled way. The judge instructed the jury that towns were not required to render the road passable for the entire width of the...