INJURIES PROM BARBED- WIRE FENCES. 157 



and along the line of the public highway did not of itself ren- 

 der them liable to the plaintifif for the damages sustained ; but 

 if the fence was constructed and maintained in such a manner 

 as to constitute negligence, they were properly held liable. 

 .... The defendants were not bound to maintain any fence 

 at all, but having undertaken to maintain one, they were 

 bound to see that it was not made a trap for passing animals. 

 It is the duty of the land-owner to take notice of the natural 

 propensity of domestic animals and to exercise reasonable 

 care to prevent his fence from becoming dangerous. The 

 fact that the fence was constructed entirely upon defendant's 

 land is no defence, if negligently constructed or main- 

 tained." "« 



So, in Indiana, the erector of such a fence is liable where 

 he lays the wire on the ground without protection; and the 

 owner of animals is not as a matter of law guilty of contribu- 

 tory negligence in permitting them to wander to and become 

 entangled in barbed wires left lying on the ground without 

 protection by an adjoining land-owner who was building a 

 division fence — the owner of the animals not knowing of such 

 fence.^^® 



Where there was a barbed-wire fence, though not a lawful 

 one, between two pastures as to the boundaries of which there 

 was some question, and the defendant without the other 

 owner's consent and against his protest and that of the plaint- 

 iff, his tenant, moved the fence so that it crossed a path by 

 which the plaintiff's horse was accustomed to go to water, 

 there was held to be a catise of action for an injury received 

 by the horse.^"" And where the owner of land, after allowing 

 the public to drive across his lot for several years, stretched 

 a barbed-wire fence across the track without other notice 

 that he had withdrawn his license, he was held liable for an 



"■ Loveland v. Gardner, 79 Cal. 317, 319. 



'" Lowe V. Guard, 11 Ind. App. 472. And see McFarland v. Swihart, 

 Ibid. 175. 

 =°" Boyd V. Burkett (Tex. Civ. App.), 27 S. W. Rep. 223. 



