Case ID: ill-app_204/html/0082-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Carnes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

A. T. Scovill, Appellant, v. Albert C. Lange, Appellee.
    Gen. No. 6,369.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Appeal from the Circuit Court of Whiteside county; the Hon. Frank D. Ramsay, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the October term, 1916.
    Affirmed.
    Opinion filed February 10, 1917.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by A. T. Scovill, plaintiff, against Albert C. Lange, defendant, to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by driving his automobile into a ditch. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals.
    The defendant as one of .the highway commissioners of his township caused a temporary bridge to be erected for public travel leaving the highway, a State aid road, about seventy or eighty feet from the embankment of an old bridge which had been washed away, and a railing about twelve feet long and four feet high to be erected about ten feet from the washout to prevent travelers driving into the open space. The plaintiff after dark on the evening the work was completed drove up at the rate of about fifteen miles an hour, and not seeing the railing or knowing of the washout until too near to stop his car drove through the railing and into the ditch.
    Robert W. Besse and Charles C. McMahon, for appellant.
    
      Abstract of the Decision.
    Roads and bridges, § 220
      
      —when commissioners not personally liable for injuries to persons using highway. The commissioners of highways are not individually liable for the injuries resulting to individuals using the highway when they have exercised in good faith their best judgment and discretion in repairing and improving roads and bridges of the town.
    W. A. Blodgett and McCalmont & Ramsay, for appellee.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Justice Carnes

delivered the opinion of the court.