City of Chicago v. Hoy

Citations

• 75 Ill. 530

Syllabus

<p>1. Negligence — by city in removal of dead animals. An object in a public street calculated to frighten horses, such as a dead animal, is such an obstruction as makes the corporation liable in case of an accident, resulting in injury, happening in consequence thereof.</p> <p>2. Where a horse died in a public street of a city about 2 o’clock F. M., and the fact that the dead body was left in the street was known to a policeman of the city that night, and on the next day about 3 o’clock P. M., the plaintiff, while driving along the street, without negligence on his part, was injured in consequence of his horse taking fright at the dead animal, it was held, that the city was liable to him for the injury.</p> <p>3. Municipal cobfobation—duty to remove obstructions in streets. It is the duty of a municipal corporation, such as a city, to exercise reasonable care and diligence in the removal of dead animals or other objects in a public street, calculated to frighten horses, after actual notice of the same; after the lapse of such a time that it should, by the exercise of reasonable diligence, have had knowledge thereof, actual notice may be presumed.</p> <p>4. Excessive damages. In a suit against a city, to recover damages from neglect to remove a dead animal from a public street, which frightened the plaintiff’s horse as he was driving along the street, and caused him to run away and throw the plaintiff and his wife from the buggy in which they were riding, inflicting some bodily injury on the plaintiff and injuring his wife, so that the plaintiff necessarily incurred an expense of $75, physician’s bill for attending on her, and was compelled to hire a girl to do house work at $3 per week, and the proof showing her board worth $3 per week, making $411 expense of the girl, and that the cost of repairing the wagon and harness was $35, it was held, that $800 damages, in a suit by the plaintiff against the city, were not so manifestly excessive as to call for a reversal o