CHAKACTEE OF OBJECTS CAUSING FRIGHT. 235 



to be frightened, especially in the absence of any apparent 

 reason for so doing." ^^* 



Where a water company created a nuisance in the highway 

 by leaving nnfenced a stream of water which they had caused 

 to spout up, and the plaintiff's horses were frightened and 

 fell into an unfenced excavation in the highway, made by con- 

 tractors who were building a sewer, and were injured, it was 

 held that the water company was liable, and not the contrac- 

 tors. "The proximate cause of the injury is the first neg- 

 ligent act which drove the carriage and horses into the ex- 

 cavation." ^'^^ And where through the defendant's negli- 

 gence in having a projecting roof so constructed that snow 

 would, in the ordinary course of things, fall from it on the 

 highway, snow did so fall and strike the plaintiff's horse, 

 frightening it and making it run away, the injury received by 

 the plaintiff on being thrown out was held to be a proximate 

 result of the negligence.'''^ 



The body of a common wagon left at the side of a road and 

 laid up edgewise against the bushes" within the limits of a road 

 but outside of the travelled track does not render a town lia- 

 ble for the fright of a horse thereat. It is insufficient to 

 frighten an ordinarily gentle animal, and towns are not in- 

 surers.'^'^ But a land owner and a town which permitted him 

 to store his drays and wagons when not in use in a street were 

 held liable for injuries resulting from the fright of a horse at 

 a dray in the night-time, although the drays and wagons took 

 up only a part of the street.^''® And where a vicious mare 

 was frightened by a van, unreasonably left on the side of a 

 highway, and ran away and kicked and injured her driver so 



'" Thompson v. Dodge, 58 Minn. 555. 



"= Hill V. New River Co., 9 B. & S. 303- 



"°Smethurst v. Proprs. Ind. Cong. Church, 148 Mass. 261. And see 

 Trestler v. Dawson, 3 Leg. News (Can.) 76; 5 id. 114. 



"' Nichols V. Athens, 66 Me. 402. And see Rounds v. Stratford, 26 

 U. C. C. P. II. For the requisites of a declaration in such a case, see 

 Rounds V. Stratford, 25 U. C. C. P. 123. 



''* Ladoga v. Linn, 9 Ind. App. 15. 



