Horstick v. Dunkle

Citations

• 145 Pa. 220
• 23 A. 378
• 1892 Pa. LEXIS 759

Syllabus

<p>1. A landowner maintaining an unfenced pond, distant fifteen feet from the edge of a highway, and twenty-seven feet from the traveled track, is not liable to a traveler, whose horse, becoming uncontrollable through fright not chargeable to such landowner, leaves the highway and carries him into the pond, for injuries thus caused: Gramlich v. Wurst, 86 Pa. 74; Gillespie v. McGowan, 100 Pa. 144.</p> <p>2. A landowner, who, by permission of the sequestrator of a turnpike company, alters the grade of the road upon his land, assumes the duty of the company in regard to making the road, as thus altered, suitable and safe for public travel; and for a neglect to perform such duty, he will be liable to the same extent as the company itself.</p> <p>3. While the cases in Pennsylvania hold townships and corporations, charged with the care of the public highways, to a more exacting rule than obtains in some other states, in instances where the element of an unruly or frightened horse enters into the causes of an accident, none of them go so far as to say that roads must be made safe for runaway horses.</p> <p>4. The circumstance that a horse becomes uncontrollable through fright, not chargeable to the officers of the township or corporation, neither adds to nor takes away from the rights which the driver would have without it; in either ease, the question is whether the road was in a condition making it suitable and sufficient for public travel conducted in the ordinary manner.</p> <p>(а) The defendants owned the land on each side of a turnpike road. North of the road, was a dam used as an ice pond, the breast of which was fifteen feet away from the edge of the road, and separated from it by a fence. The top of the dam was eight feet higher than the road. By permission of the sequestrator of the road, defendants filled it up, raising it to the level of the dam.</p> <p>(б) In making the fill, the width of the roadway was somewhat contracted on the south side. Defendants also r