Bovee v. Town of Danville
Supreme Court of Vermont
This was an action on the case for an injury to the plaintiff wife by reason of an alleged insufficiency in a highway which the defendant was bound to keep in repair. Plea, the general issue. Trial by jury, and verdict for the plaintiffs; June Term, 1880, Ross, J., presiding, Caledonia County.
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This was an action on the case for an injury to the plaintiff wife by reason of an alleged insufficiency in a highway which the defendant was bound to keep in repair. Plea, the general issue. Trial by jury, and verdict for the plaintiffs; June Term, 1880, Ross, J., presiding, Caledonia County. The plaintiffs’ evidence tended to show that, on the occasion in question, they were driving over a culvert on the defendant’s highway, when their horse, for some unknown cause, suddenly shied toward the west and threw the wagon off the west end of the culvert, whereby the plaintiff wife was violently…
1Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Powers, J.
The recital of the facts and circumstances attending a personal injury in cases of this kind, necessarily involves the conduct of the plaintiff, or some one for whose conduct the plaintiff is answerable. A recovery can be predicated only upon a state of facts, that enables the jury to say that the injury happened, in the language of the statute, “ by means of” the insufficiency of the highway. If it be said that the burden is to show that the insufficiency of the highway was the sole, operative cause of the injury, this is equivalent to…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Walker v. Town of WestfieldSupreme Court of Vermont · 1867
- Alexander ex rel. Alexander v. BlodgettSupreme Court of Vermont · 1872
3Cited by45 opinions
- Duggan v. Bay State Street Railway Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1918
- Higgins, Admr. v. MetzgerSupreme Court of Vermont · 1928
- Augusta & Summerville Railroad v. Randall & WifeSupreme Court of Georgia · 1890
- Risley v. LenwellCalifornia Court of Appeal · 1954
- Sullivan v. Old Colony Street Railway Co.Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1908
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