Dunn v. Town of Barnwell

Citations

• 43 S.C. 398
• 21 S.E. 315
• 1895 S.C. LEXIS 176

Syllabus

<p>1. A Municipal Corporation is Not Liable to a civil action for damages at the suit of an individual who has sustained an injury, either in person or in property, by reason of a failure on the part of the corporation to keep its streets in proper repair, as required by its charter, in the absence of a statute imposing such liability.</p> <p>2. Ibid. — A Statute entitled “An act providing for a right of action against a municipal corporation for damages sustained by reason of defects in the repair of streets” within its limits, and which in its body gives a right of action to any person who shall receive injury in his person or property through a defect in any street by reason of defect or mismanagement of anything under control of the corporation within the limits of any town, provided the said corporation shall not be liable unless said defect was occasioned by its neglect or mismanagement, gives no right of action for any nonfeasance or misfeasance, except such as was connected with the keeping of the streets in proper and safe repair.</p> <p>3. Ibid. — Where a municipal corporation is liable only for defects in repair of streets, a complaint against a town to recover damages for injury sustained by plaintiff’s horse, as a result of a booth erected in the street, causing the horse to be frightened, there being “an apparent safe way along said street at said time” over which the horse could have safely passed but for the fright which the horse took at the goods displayed for sale in the booth, does not state a cause of action.1</p>