Tinkham v. Town of Stockbridge

• Decision Date: 28 May 1892
• Citation: 24 A. 761,64 Vt. 480
• Parties: WILLIAM AND PAUL TINKHAM v. TOWN OF STOCKBRIDGE
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

24 A. 761

64 Vt. 480

WILLIAM AND PAUL TINKHAM v. TOWN OF STOCKBRIDGE

Supreme Court of Vermont

May 28, 1892

FEBRUARY TERM, 1892

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Hunton & Stickney and W.E. Johnson, for the defendant.

Present ROWELL, TYLER, START AND THOMPSON, JJ.

OPINION

ROWELL

The court charged in effect that, whatever was necessary to connect the wooden structure that spanned the stream and the stone abutments on which it rested with the highway built on the solid ground, and to make the structure accessible and useful as a part of the highway was a part of the bridge. This was substantially correct. As we have no statute that determines the question, we must resort to the common law to find out what, aside from the structure itself, constitutes a part of a bridge.

By the common law of England, declared by 22 Hen. VIII. c. 5, and subsequent bridge acts, where the inhabitants of a county are liable to the repair of a public bridge, they are liable also to the repair of the highway at the ends of the bridge to the extent of three hundred feet. The King v. The West Riding of York, 7 East 588. In that case Lord Ellenborough said he considered it as having been laid down long ago by Lord Coke that the three hundred feet of highway at the ends of the bridge are to be taken as a part of the bridge itself, being in the nature of the thing immediately connected with it, and the exact limits difficult in some cases to be ascertained from the continuation of arches beyond the sides of the river; that the highway within the limits of the three hundred feet at each end is dependent on the bridge as to its form and dimensions, as its level must be varied as the bridge is made higher or lower, so as to make the ascent or descent more gradual.

But in this country there is no arbitrary distance at the ends of bridges that can be said as matter of law to constitute a part of them, but it is more a question of fact for the jury in the circumstances of the particular case, to be determined under proper instructions. That the abutments proper are to be taken as a part of the bridge there seems to be no question. Bardwell v. Jamaica, 15 Vt. 438.

In the Board of Freeholders v. Strader, 18 N.J.L. 108, the horse fell from the part of the way that connected the abutment proper of the bridge with the land, ordinarily called the filling up. This the freeholders, who were county officers, claimed was no part of the bridge but a part of the road or causeway, and therefore should have been repaired by the overseers of highways, who were township officers. But the filling up was held to be a part of the bridge because it was necessary to make the bridge itself accessible.

In Penn Township v. Perry County, 78 Pa. 457, two counties were bound by statute to build a bridge. It was fully completed, except that the space between the wing-walls on the Perry County side of the river was not filled in with earth nor other material so as to make approach to the main structure possible; and the question was, whether the township or the county was liable for the expense of this filling-in, and this depended upon whether the wing-walls and the filling-in were to be taken as a part of the bridge or a part of the road leading thereto, and they were held to be a part of the bridge. The Court said that the bridge was incomplete until everything necessary for its proper use was supplied, and that every such necessary appliance was a part of the bridge.

In Daniels v. The Inhabitants and Wardens of Athens, 55 Ga. 609, plaintiff's horse backed from a bridge off a contiguous embankment. The Court charged that if the embankment was contiguous to the bridge, and necessary to enable teams and wagons to cross the stream over the bridge it was in law a part of the bridge; and this was held correct. See also, Tolland v. Willington, 26 Conn 578.

Powers v. Woodstock, 38 Vt. 44, is not in point, as the case turned on the construction given to the commissioners' report. But in Ford v. Braintree, ante, 144, this Court said that to bring a case within the statute, the accident must have happened and the injury have been sustained while the traveler was passing over the bridge, culvert, or sluice, or over that portion of the road that constitutes the approaches to it, so that the insufficiency or want of repair of the structure itself or of its approaches was the direct cause of the...