Tasker v. Inhabitants of Farmingdale

• Decision Date: 22 July 1893
• Parties: TASKER v. INHABITANTS OF FARMINGDALE.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

27 A. 464

85 Me. 523

TASKER

v. INHABITANTS OF FARMINGDALE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

July 22, 1893.

(Official.)

Action for personal injuries by Frances E. Tasker against the inhabitants of Farmingdale. Plaintiff had a verdict, and defendants bring exceptions, and move for a new trial. Verdict set aside.

A. M. Spear, for plaintiff. Baker, Baker, & Cornish, for defendants.

WALTON, J. As the plaintiff (Mrs. Tasker) was driving with two of her children over a road with which she was perfectly well acquainted, having driven over it hundreds of times, she saw an electric car coming. She says that her horse did not appear to be at all alarmed, and that she had him under full control. She nevertheless reined her horse out of the road on the opposite side from the car, so as to go as far from it as she could, and the first she knew her carriage wheel dropped down over the end of a culvert, and she and her two children were thrown out. The children were not hurt, but, for injuries claimed to have been received by her, she has recovered a verdict against the town of Farmingdale for $1,150.

We think the verdict is clearly wrong. We cannot doubt that the accident was due entirely to the plaintiff's own thoughtless inattention. The road was smooth and nearly level, and wide enough for three such carriages as the one in which the plaintiff was riding to pass abreast. Her horse was not frightened, and she had him under full control. She so testifies. She intentionally and unnecessarily reined him out of the road. It was in the evening, and the kindliest view that we can take of the plaintiff's conduct is that her attention was so absorbed by the electric car that she gave no thought to the danger she might encounter by driving out of the road. She saw the car, but she did not see, and did not think of, the culvert. Thoughtless inattention— the very essence of negligence—was the cause of the accident.

It is urged that the culvert was so constructed that it could not be easily seen in the evening. But that is true of most culverts. And there is no evidence that the plaintiff tried to see it. She does not pretend that she looked for it. The night was not very dark, and the plaintiff testifies that the width of the road was plainly visible, and she supposed there were culverts. "I mean," said she, "that I would see them as I passed along, but could not place them from memory." But she does not pretend that at the time of the accident she was making any effort to place them. She was using neither her memory nor her sense of sight. She was thoughtless and inattentive to every danger except the electric car. It is no excuse, for driving into an unseen and an unlooked-for culvert, that possibly it might not have been seen if it had been looked for. It is negligence to drive out of a well-wrought road, and into the ditch, without first ascertaining whether it will be...