Woodman v. Pitman
Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
On exceptions and motion to set aside the verdict, and for new trial. An action of the case for damages sustained by the loss of the plaintiff’s two-horse team, while being driven by his driver across the ice field of the defendants, on the Penobscot river, near Bangor. The team was driven upon a place where the thick ice had been cut and removed by the defendants and the new ice had not attained sufficient thickness and strength to sustain such a weight.
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On exceptions and motion to set aside the verdict, and for new trial. An action of the case for damages sustained by the loss of the plaintiff’s two-horse team, while being driven by his driver across the ice field of the defendants, on the Penobscot river, near Bangor. The team was driven upon a place where the thick ice had been cut and removed by the defendants and the new ice had not attained sufficient thickness and strength to sustain such a weight. The verdict was for the plaintiff for the sum of six hundred and twenty-one dollars. The opinion states other facts. The instructions as to…
1Opinion of the CourtPeters, C. J.
This case largely depends for its solution upon what may be the extent of the right to harvest ice from our large rivers, compared with the conflicting right of traveling upon such rivers during the winter season. This is an interesting topic of inquiry, in view of the importance which ice has lately assumed as a merchantable commodity, and is a branch upon which the law has as yet hardly passed beyond a formative period. The inexhaustible and ever-changing complications in human affairs are constantly presenting new questions and new conditions which the law must provide for as they arise;…
2Cases cited5 opinions
- Veazie v. MoorSupreme Court of the United States · 1853
- General v. WoodsMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1871
- People's Ice Co. v. The Steamer "Excelsior."Michigan Supreme Court · 1880
- Lewis v. MorseSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1850
- Brown v. Towns of Preston & LedyardSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1871
3Cited by21 opinions
- Tina Marie Hodge v. Chadwick CraigTennessee Supreme Court · 2012
- Box v. LanierTennessee Supreme Court · 1903
- Dunnevant v. Southern Railway Co.Supreme Court of North Carolina · 1914
- Bossmiller v. StateWisconsin Supreme Court · 1902
- State v. MallorySupreme Court of Arkansas · 1904
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