Hedricks v. Schuylkill Township

Citations

• 16 Pa. Super. 508
• 1901 Pa. Super. LEXIS 101

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Province of court and jury — Binding instructions for defendant.</p> <p>To justify the court in giving binding instructions to find for the defendant, two conditions must concur: (1) the controlling facts must be established beyond doubt; (2) their effect, in the conclusions to which they lead, must be so clear and unquestionable that it may be judicially declared.-</p> <p>Negligence — Townships—Deposit of material on public road — Province of court and jury.</p> <p>In an action against a township to recover damages for injuries to a horse, the case is for the jury, and a verdict and judgment for plaintiff will be sustained where the evidence tends to show that a water company had excavated a trench along the highway at the point where the accident occurred, and had deposited earth and stones on the roadbed; that this work had been done under the control and general direction of one of the supervisors; that the earth and stones had been thrown over the whole highway; that shortly before the accident occurred there was a heavy rain fall; that the plaintiff at the time of the accident was driving over the road with a hay press weighing about 4,000 pounds, drawn by three horses, and that owing to the soft condition of the surface of the road, the wheels of the hay press sank into the mud, and that one of the horses was permanently injured in the struggle to extricate the hay press.</p>