196 INJURIES TO ANIMALS ON HIGHWAYS. 



sion of the township officers which rendered the highway un- 

 safe for the purposes of travel, conducted in the ordinary 

 means of conveyance. If it was, then the plaintifit ought to 

 recover, and the fright of her horse, the breaking of her 

 wagon, and her inabiUty to guide her frightened animal 

 should not stand in the way of her recovery." " 



In another case it was held that where an injury was caused 

 in part by the fright of a horse and in part by the negligence 

 of the township supervisors, the township was Hable." But 

 in a later case, this decision was overruled and it was held that 

 where a horse fell and, in its struggle to regain its feet, went 

 over a declivity where the city had neglected to erect a bar- 

 rier, the fall was the proximate cause of the injury and the 

 city was not hable.^^ 



But the rule in Massachusetts and Maine was not clearly 

 adopted till it was decided where a horse hitched to a vehicle 

 took fright at a donkey drawing a cart loaded with tin cans 

 and ran away, wrecking one of the wheels, which dragged 

 upon the ground till it came to a hole negligently left upon 

 the highway by the township, and the occupants were thrown 

 out and injured — that the proximate cause of the injury was 

 the horse's fright and, as that was not caused by any neglect 

 of duty on the part of the authorities, the township was not 

 liable. The court said: "The concurrence of that which is 

 ordinary with a party's negligence does not relieve him from 

 responsibility for the resultant injury. Examples of such 

 concurrence may be found in cases where, by reason of causes 

 known to the public authorities, horses are likely to become 

 frightened and in their sudden fright plunge over an un- 

 guarded precipice or rush upon some danger within the high- 

 way for the existence of which the authorities are responsible. 



" Jackson Tp. v. Wagner, 127 Pa. St. 184. And see Worrilow t'. Upper 

 Chichester Tp., 149 id. 40; Lehigh Co. v. Hoffort, 116 id. 119; Bishop v. 

 Schuylkill (Pa.), 8 Atl. Rep. 449; Heister v. Fawn Tp., 189 Pa. St. 253. 



" Wagner v. Jackson Tp., 133 Pa. St. 61. 



"" Herr v. Lebanon, 149 Pa. St. 222. 



