RULE THAT MUNICIPALITY IS LIABLE. 211 



obstruction in the street, it was held that the obstruction was 

 the proximate cause of the injury, the court saying: "Where 

 several concurring acts or conditions of things — one of them 

 the wrongful act or omission of the defendant — produce the 

 injury, and it would not have been produced but for such 

 wrongful act or omission, such act or omission is the prox- 

 imate cause of the injury, if the injury be one which might 

 reasonably be anticipated as a natural consequence of the act 

 or omission." ^^ 



In Missouri the rule in New Hampshire is followed and the 

 municipality is liable for an injury produced by a defect in 

 the highway and some accidental cause.^^ This was held to 

 be the case where one, to avoid the kick of a mule, fell into 

 an excavation and was injured.'* But where a road was wide 

 and good enough for persons in the exercise of ordinary care, 

 it was held that the fact of a gully into which a runaway team 

 falls being outside of the travelled part, would not make 

 the city liable. "It would certainly be a most unreasonable 

 demand to require the corporate authorities of a city not only 

 to provide safe and commpdious streets for all ordinary pur- 

 poses of travel, but to provide thoroughfares of such ample 

 dimensions and such matchless grade that accidents, even 

 from runaway teams, would be absolute impossibilities." '^* 



In North Carolina, where a frightened horse ran into an 

 obstruction and the plaintiff was injured, it was held that the 

 obstruction and not the running of the horse was the prox- 

 imate cause of the injury.'^' 



In Texas a plaintiff may recover where his horse, acciden- 

 tally frightened, backs oflf a bridge insufficiently fenced,'® 



" Campbell v. Stillwater, 32 Minn. 308. 



'' Hull V. Kansas City, 54 Mo. 598; Vogelgesang v. St. Louis, 139 id. 

 127 — where the fright was momentary. 



" Bassett v. St. Joseph, 53 Mo. 290. 



" Brown v. Glasgow, 57 Mo. 156, approving of Titus v. Northbridge« 

 g7 Mass. 258, cited in § 62, supra. 



" Dillon V. Raleigh (N. C), 32 S. E. Rep. 548. 



" Baldridge & C. Bridge Co. v. Cartrett, 75 Tex. 628. 



