Thubron v. Dravo Contracting Co.

Citations

• 238 Pa. 443
• 86 A. 292
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 990

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Municipalities—Contractors—Roads and highways —Unguarded embankment — Runaway horses — Proximate cause.</p> <p>1. When there are two efficient, independent, proximate causes of an injury sustained on a highway, the primary cause being one for which the party charged with negligence is not responsible, and the other being a defect in the highway, the injury must be referred to the former and not to the latter.</p> <p>2. Municipalities are under no obligation to keep their highways in such condition that damage cannot be caused thereon by horses which have escaped from the control of their driver and are running away.</p> <p>3. In an action to recover damages for the death of two horses where it appears that the horses were being led at night time through a public street in a city on the way to their stable by a servant of the plaintiff owner; that either through the negligence of the servant or because of unexplained fright, the horses escaped from the servant’s control and ran in the direction in which they were being led; that in continuing straight on after a certain point had been reached, they were not following the route on which they would have been led, but one which ended a short distance beyond on the bank of a river at a point where there had been a bridge which was being removed by the city through the defendant as contractor for the work; that no sufficient barriers at the terminus of the street on the bank existed, and that in consequence when the horses reached this terminus they plunged over a high embankment into the river and were killed by the fall, it is the duty of the court to give binding instructions for the defendant.</p> <p>4. In such a case, the measure of duty with respect to the maintenance of barriers on the river embankment resting on the contractor under the city was neither more nor less than the duty that would have rested on the city had it undertaken the work of removing the bridge otherwise than through a contracto