Tasker v. Inhabitants of Farmingdale
| Decision Date | 14 May 1898 |
| Citation | 40 A. 544,91 Me. 521 |
| Parties | TASKER v. INHABITANTS OF FARMINGDALE. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
(Official.)
Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Kennebec county.
Action by Frances E. Tasker against the inhabitants of Farmingdale to recover damages sustained by reason of a defective highway. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendant moved for new trial, and also took exceptions. Exceptions sustained.
A. M. Spear, W. D. Whitney, H. M. Heath, and C. L. Andrews, for plaintiff.
O. D. Baker and F. L. Staples, for defendant.
This case, an action to recover damages for personal injuries alleged to have been sustained by reason of a defective highway, has been three times tried, each time resulting in a verdict for the plaintiff.
The first two verdicts were set aside by the law court, not because the court believed that the jury had erred in passing upon contradictory testimony as to disputed facts, but because, in the opinion of the court, the plaintiff's testimony, and that introduced in her behalf, conclusively showed that the accident was caused, in part, at least, by her own negligence. 85 Me. 523, 27 Atl. 464, and 88 Me. 103, 33 Atl. 785.
The case is now again before the court upon a motion to set aside the third verdict. Precisely the same question is presented that has been twice before passed upon by the court. The case has each time been tried upon substantially the same testimony. At the last trial no new testimony material to this issue of contributory negligence was introduced; and, from the nature of the case, and on account of the reasons of the court for setting aside the former verdicts, it is difficult to perceive how the plaintiff's case could have been aided by additional testimony.
The material and undisputed facts, upon which the court in the former decisions has based its conclusion that the plaintiff's want of due care contributed to the accident, are these: As the plaintiff was driving, in the evening, over a road with which she was perfectly well acquainted, she saw approaching her an electric car. She says that her horse "was under full control all the time, and did not seem to be alarmed at all." When she saw the approaching car, she turned her horse towards the side of the road away from the car track, and continued driving in that direction until her carriage wheel dropped down over the end of a culvert, when she was thrown out of the carriage, and sustained certain injury. The road at this point was...
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Wheat v. City of St. Louis
...Iowa 370; Tuffree v. State Center, 57 Iowa 538; Yahn v. Ottumwa, 60 Iowa 429; Nebraska Tel. Co. v. Iones (Neb.), 81 N.W. 435; Tasker v. Farmingdale, 91 Me. 521; Gilmer Deerfield, 15 Gray 577; Corbett v. Leavenworth, 27 Kan. 673; Moone v. Richmond, 85 Va. 538; Walker v. Reidsville, 96 N.C. 3......
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City of Tulsa v. Harman
...538, 11 N.W. 1, where the plaintiff drove in one direction, and was looking and talking to persons in another direction; Tasker v. Farmingdale, 91 Me. 521, 40 A. 544, where the plaintiff was absorbed in looking at an electric car, and gave no thought to the dangers on the road, and drove a ......
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Wheat v. City of St. Louis
...538, 11 N. W. 1, where the plaintiff drove in one direction, and was looking and talking to persons in another direction; Tasker v. Farmingdale, 91 Me. 521, 40 Atl. 544, where the plaintiff was absorbed in looking at an electric car, and gave no thought to the dangers on the road, and drove......
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City of Tulsa v. Harman
... ... to persons in another direction; Tasker v ... Farmingdale, 91 Me. 521, 40 A. 544, where the plaintiff ... was absorbed in looking at an ... ...