Court Opinion

ID: 3551454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2016-07-05 23:04:00.208307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:48.730898
License: Public Domain

The case of Eastman v. Meredith was very elaborately and carefully considered by the late Chief Justice PERLEY. From that case, and the authorities cited by my brother SMITH, it seems to me well established that this is one of that class of cases in which a corporation would be liable at common law for a neglect of its duty.
Some question has been made in the argument about the sufficiency of the notice to the city of the defect in the sewer, and it is claimed that the city marshal was not the proper officer to receive the notice. In the case of Howe v. Plainfield, 41 N.H. 135, which was an action for damages occasioned by a defect in a highway, the defendants offered to show that the selectmen had no notice of the defect. The testimony was excluded, and it was held to have been rightly excluded, — the court putting the matter upon the ground that, if the defect had existed for a sufficient length of time to give reasonable opportunity to ascertain and repair it, the town was liable, whether the selectmen had notice, express or implied, of its existence or not. The true theory of the law seems to be, that, in matters of this kind, every corporator ought to interest himself in taking notice of defects and bringing them to the knowledge of the authorities, and that whenever the jury is in condition to say that the corporation ought to have taken notice, it will be held liable. I think we must infer that the referee found, from the notice to the city marshal, which tended to give notoriety, from the length of time which had elapsed, and from all the circumstances, that the defendants had been guilty of neglect. I think, therefore, there should be judgment for the plaintiff on the report. *Page 297