WHERE FRIGHT IS CAUSED BY. THE DEFECT. 215 



not responsible for the injury because the defect in the way 

 was its remote, not its proximate, cause. 



In Keith v. Easton®" a large vehicle used as a daguerreau 

 saloon, standing partly within the limits of the highway but 

 several feet from the travelled path, was held not to be a de- 

 fect by reason of which a traveller could recover damages for 

 an injury resulting from his horse's fright. The court said : 

 "In no case has it been held that an object existing within 

 the limits of a highway, but leaving the travelled part unob- 

 structed, so that the traveller is safe from all collision with it, 

 is a defect in the way merely because it exposes the traveller's 

 horse to become frightened by the sight of it, either at rest 

 or in motion, or by sounds or smells that may issue from it. 

 . . . The discussion of the present case suggested many other 

 illustrations. Cattle or horses running at large might 

 frighten the traveller's horse; the sight of flags displayed, or 

 a window curtain fluttering in the wind over the street 

 through a raised window; the goods displayed in front of 

 shops ; the numberless operations of business and amusement 

 constantly carried on in our cities and villages within the 

 limits of the highway; the gatherings at agricultural fairs, 

 military trainings and other public occasions, may any or all 

 of them tend to frighten many passing horses ; yet it would 

 be a novel doctrine to hold that highway surveyors may inter- 

 fere in such cases under their authority to repair highways, 

 or that the attributes of a way include them because they may 

 frighten horses." 



Nor does the fact that the object causing the fright is in 

 the travelled path make the town liable, as, for example, 

 gravel left in a road f^ or a dead horse f"^ or a bright stone 



"2 Allen (Mass.) SS2. Judge Redfield says of this case in 8 Am. L. 

 Reg. N. S. 81 n.: "The decision may be sound but we should have deemed 

 it a case of such doubt as to be submitted to a jury, as was done in the 

 principal case [Morse v. Richmond, 41 Vt. 435, cited infra]." 



" Kingsbury v. Dedham, 13 Allen (Mass.) 187. 



°^ Cook V. Charlestown , 13 Allen (Mass.) 190 n. 



