Bemis v. Temple
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Tort, for injuries occasioned to the plaintiff’s person and property by reason of his horse becoming frightened at a flag suspended across a street in Spencer.
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Tort, for injuries occasioned to the plaintiff’s person and property by reason of his horse becoming frightened at a flag suspended across a street in Spencer. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Aldrich, J., the plaintiff introduced evidence tending to show that the defendant, as one of a political committee, caused a campaign flag to be suspended and maintained across Main Street in Spencer; that the flag was raised in July, 1892, and continued to swing until after the Presidential election of the same year; that it was suspended by a wire attached to buildings on opposite sides of…
1Opinion of the CourtKnowlton, J.
To maintain his case the plaintiff was obliged to show that the flag hung across the street was an object which was so likely to frighten horses as to render driving upon the street unsafe, and that in its position there it was a public nuisance. The fundamental question in the case was whether ordinarily safe and gentle horses would be frightened by it. The inquiry was in regard to the effect of an inanimate object upon an animal acting from instinct. The only way in which knowledge on this subject could ever be acquired is by observation of the effect of the object, or of similar objects,…
2Cases cited19 opinions
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- House v. MetcalfSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1858
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