Kerr v. Kiskiminetas Township

Citations

• 238 Pa. 59
• 85 A. 1084
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 922

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Townships—Defective road — Guard rail.</p> <p>1. In an action against a township to recover damages for personal injuries, the case is for the jury, and a verdict and judgment for plaintiff will be sustained, where the evidence for the plaintiff tends to show that at the time of the accident plaintiff was driving a one-seated buggy with another woman and two children along a public highway; that the plaintiff’s horse was directed homeward, and was ascending a hill, when it approached a point in the road estimated at from nine to fourteen feet wide with an embankment on one side and a steep declivity on the other, without any guardrail; that at this point plaintiff met another team; that the two horses stopped; and that immediately thereafter plaintiff’s horse began to back down across the road over the declivity, and plaintiff was thrown out and injured.</p> <p>2. In such a case it is for the jury to determine whether or not the supervisors should have foreseen that one of the natural consequences of the absence of a guard-rail was that upon the meeting of two vehicles at the point in question a horse might become restless and back over the declivity, particularly a horse obliged to stop while approaching his home and going up hill.</p>