RULE THAT MUNICIPALITY IS LIABLE. 205 



the insufficiency of the road, combined with some accidental 

 cause, the defendants are liable." ^^ 



And in a somewhat similar case it is said: "Very good 

 reasons could be given that a traveller who ventures upon the 

 highway with an unsafe horse, a defective carriage or harness, 

 takes that risk upon himself; and if he thereby suffers injury, 

 though innocent, it is his misfortune, which he cannot cast 

 upon the town. Such is the well-established rule in Massa- 

 chusetts [citing Murdock z;. Warwick*"]. . . . But there has 

 been a long and unbroken line of decisions in this State that 

 'if the plaintiff is in the exercise of ordinary care and pru- 

 dence, and the injury is attributable to the insufficiency of 

 the road, conspiring with some accidental cause, the defend- 

 ants are liable,' ... or, as was comprehensively stated in 

 Kelsey v. Glover*^ . . . : 'It has long been considered and 

 repeatedly adjudged that a duty does exist which binds the 

 town or corporation to provide reasonable security in refer- 

 ence to such accidents as may be expected to happen.' " *^ 



But where horses became frightened and ran into a hole in 

 ice near the highway, negligently left unguarded, and were 

 drowned, it was held that their owner, though free from neg- 

 ligence, could not recover from one whose duty it was to 

 place a guard around the hole, if the horses' speed was so 

 great that a guard would not have prevented the accident.*^ 



In Connecticut, where a horse, frightened by the breaking 

 of a carriage owing to a defect for which the plaintiff was 

 not responsible, ran away and fell over the side of a bridge 

 by reason of a defect in the railing, it was held that the turn- 

 pike company was liable, following the Vermont cases and 

 dissenting from those of Maine and Massachusetts.** And 

 in a similar case it was held not to be a decisive fact against 

 the right to recover, that the horses at the time they were 



^° Hunt V. Pownal, 9 Vt. 411. And see Kelsey v. Glover, 15 id. 708; 

 Allen V. Hancock, 16 id. 230. 

 " 4 Gray (Mass.) 178, cited in § 62, supra. " Cited supra. 

 " Hodge V. Bennington, 43 Vt. 450. " Sowles v. Moore, 65 Vt. 322. 

 " Baldwin v. Greenwoods Turnp. Co., 40 Conn. 238. 



