Trexler v. Greenwich Township

Citations

• 168 Pa. 214
• 31 A. 1090
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 779

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Townships—Dangerous road — Norses.</p> <p>In an action to recover damages for personal injuries, it appeared that plaintiff was injured by falling with his team and wagon down a declivity extending seventy feet at the side of a public road eleven feet wide, on the other side of which there was an embankment. The descent for the first ten feet was vertical, and for the rest of the way it was so steep that the plaintiff and his horses rolled down it fifty feet until their motion was arrested by a stump. There was no guard rail or barrier of any kind at this point. The case was submitted to the jury with instructions that if the road was dangerous by reason of its proximity to a precipice it was the duty of the township to exercise common prudence to insure the safety of travelers, and to erect barriers if they were necessary for that purpose. Neld, that a judgment on a verdict should be sustained.</p> <p>The question of safety relates not only to the tendency of the horse to become frightened, but also to the facility with which he can be controlled, and it is too broad a statement to say that country roads must be so kept that “ skittish ” horses may be driven upon them with safety. There is no duty whatever to provide for the use of vicious, untrained or unmanageable horses, and whoever drives such horses upon the road does so at his peril. Per Pell, J.</p>