Shaw v. Plains Township

Citations

• 275 Pa. 289
• 119 A. 289
• 27 A.L.R. 1101
• 1922 Pa. LEXIS 496

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Townships—First-class townships — Sidewalks—Accumulation of snow and ice — Roads in sparsely populated districts —Act of April 28, 1899, P. L. 104.</p> <p>1. A township is not compelled to maintain or keep in repair a sidewalk constructed under an act of assembly unless the duty is imposed.</p> <p>2. Township supervisors or commissioners are under no obligation to construct a footpath along every county road; nor, if such paths are constructed along county roads by abutting owners, are the supervisors and commissioners under any duty to keep them in repair or free from ice and snow.</p> <p>3. A township of the first class is not liable for an injury occasioned through the fall of a pedestrian on a dirt sidewalk covered with snow, where it appears that the sidewalk was in a sparsely inhabited district along an unimproved road, and that the township had assumed no control of it, under the Act of April 28,- 1899, P. L. 104.</p> <p>4. It seems that even if such sidewalk had been built of wood, brick or other solid material, the township would have been under no duty to keep it free from ice and snow.</p>