220 INJURIES TO ANIMALS ON HIGHWAYS. 



elled portion of the highway, the traveller may recover with- 

 out having come into contact with it. If the plaintiff were 

 dismounting to prevent upsetting while the horse was rest- 

 less from fright, the defect in the way would be the proximate 

 cause of her injury, but if the horse was manageable and the 

 plaintifif was dismounting to lead him by the defect, when he 

 started up and threw her down, the defect would not be such 

 proximate cause."** But a tree on a wagon left standing in a 

 road temporarily is not an "obstruction left" on the highway, 

 at which if a horse is frightened the town is rendered liable."^ 



In Pennsylvania, where damages resulted from a horse 

 being frightened at a stone along the highway, it was held 

 that whether this would frighten an ordinarily quiet horse was 

 a question for the jury, and that the plaintiffs need not show 

 affirmatively that their negligence did not contribute to the 

 injury, as this was a matter of defence.^^^ But where horses 

 struck an ash-heap on a road, were frightened, ran away and 

 were killed by a train, the negligence in leaving the ash-heap 

 in the road was held to be the remote, not the proximate, 

 cause of the injury.^^^ 



Where the plaintiff's horse was frightened at a pile of lum- 

 ber at the side of the road, the township having notice there- 

 of, it was held that he could recover against the latter, though 

 he might have sued the person who deposited the lumber. 

 "The fright of a horse may, perhaps, as often be attributable 

 to the place in which an object is unexpectedly found as to 

 the frightful appearance of the object itself; still there are ob- 



^'° Card V. Ellsworth, 65 Me. 547. And see the comments on this case 

 in Nichols v. Athens, 66 id. 402, where it is said: "Whether a recovery 

 can be had where the fright is caused by an object outside of the travelled 

 road, but within its located limits and, if so, to what extent and under 

 what limitations and conditions, we are disposed to regard as questions 

 not yet judicially decided in this State." 



"' Davis V. Bangor, 42 Me. 522. 



"" Mallory v. Griflfey, 85 Pa. St. 275. And see Potter v. Natural Gas 

 Co., 183 id. S7S. 



'"West Mahanoy Tp. v. Watson, 116 Pa. St. 344. 



