Neel v. King County

Citations

• 53 Wash. 490
• 102 P. 396
• 1909 Wash. LEXIS 1352

Syllabus

<p>Highways — Duty to Maintain — -Use Outside Highways — Barriers. A county is liable for injuries sustained by a traveler by team, who fell into a washout in close proximity to a road of such a dangerous character that barriers should have been erected, where the place outside the road line had been used as a part of the county road and as a continuance thereof, without being marked off therefrom, so that persons using ordinary care would be liable to drive thereon.</p> <p>Same — Instructions as to Duty — Insurer of Safety. In an action for injuries sustained by a traveler by team in falling into a washout, along a county road, an instruction requiring a county to maintain its highways in a reasonably safe condition for public travel, is not erroneous in that it makes a county an insurer of the safety of its roads, where by other instructions the jury were told the county would not be liable on account of the washout unless ordinary prudence would have anticipated and guarded against it.</p>