Drake v. City of East Cleveland

Citations

• 101 Ohio St. (N.S.) 111

Syllabus

<p>Municipal corporations — Streets and alleys — Duty to keep open, etc. — Liability for negligence.— Limited to usual and ordinary uses — Runaway team leaves safe portion of street — Occupant of vehicle injured — Proximate cause — Condition of street or negligence of city.</p> <p>1. The obligation of a municipality to keep its public ways in a reasonably safe condition for public travel exists with respect to such persons as travel the ways in the usual and ordinary modes, and does not extend to undirected and uncontrollable travel, such as a team of horses running away in the absence of its driver. The municipality is not responsible for injury sustained by a person upon the vehicle involved in such runaway, if such injury to him results from the uncontrolled action of the team in leaving that part of the public way which is reasonably adequate and safe for travel.</p> <p>2. Where a two-horse delivery truck, which had been standing at the curb on that side of a public, city street, fifty-four feet wide, which was paved to a width of thirty-four feet and for that space in a condition of reasonable safety for travel, was carried, in the absence of the driver, by the horses becoming frightened and uncontrollable, across the street into a narrow trench left open in that portion of the street which was in the process of remaking, and the plaintiff stationed in the rear of the truck was injured by being thrown to the ground when the wheels of the truck dropped into the trench, the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury was the running away of the horses and not the negligence of the city in leaving the trench open and unguarded.</p>