WHERE FRIGHT IS CAUSED BY THE DEFECT. 217 



habit.^' And where a trough causes a horse to shy and drive 

 a carriage into a defect in the highway, without the driver's 

 fault, the town may be hable. "The jury would be justified 

 in finding that the plaintiff's loss of the control of his horse 

 was momentary or partial." ^* But where a horse, frightened 

 by an object in the highway, sprang aside and was injured 

 by collision with a carriage driven on the proper side, the 

 town was held not liable, although beyond that carriage was 

 a ridge which was a defect in the highway and prevented the 

 carriage from being driven further off — the court saying that 

 as the carriage "could have been driven rightfully where it 

 was driven, it may also be that if the road had been in no de- 

 gree narrowed by the ridge, the accident would still have oc- 

 curred."®^ Where a horse was frightened by a defect in a 

 highway and the driver turned him towards a bank and he 

 ran into a post outside of the highway and the plaintiff was 

 injured, it was held correct to charge that, if the horse's vice 

 caused his running away, the plaintiff could not recover, 

 though the vice was unknown to him and he used reason- 

 able care.^®" 



In Michigan, where a horse was frightened at a stone dug 

 out of the roadbed and lying outside of the travelled portion 

 of the highway and upset the buggy, the stone having been 

 left till it could be removed by one who had asked for and ob- 

 tained it for building purposes, it was held that the town was 

 not liable, as the statutory provision applied only where the 

 want of repair of the highway was the immediate cause of the 

 injury and did not prohibit allowing things which form no 

 part of it to stand in it temporarily. "But if it is admitted, 

 and the court below allowed the jury so to assume, that a city 

 is liable for leaving or allowing in its streets that which is dan- 

 gerous by reason of its tendency to frighten passing teams, 



" Stone V. Hubbardston, loo Mass. 49. 

 " Gushing v. Bedford, 125 Mass. 526. 

 " Bemis v. Arlington, 114 Mass. 507. 

 "" Brooks V. Acton, 117 Mass. 204. 



