Court Opinion

ID: 7940558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-08 23:14:24.83305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:33:42.378639
License: Public Domain

Hooker, J.
(concurring). The doctrine that a township is not liable for an injury, where, though negligent, such negligence is not the proximate cause of the injury, has been asserted and reiterated many times by this court. Like other rules, it is invoked in many cases where its *391application is of doubtful propriety, and doubtless in some to which it should not be applied. It is not unnatural that minds should differ in close cases, and there is always danger that a misapplication shall make it more difficult to adhere to the rule, and easy to extend it. There is but one proper way to deal with such questions, and that is to adhere to the underlying principle, and not put too great emphasis upon similar, but not necessarily analogous, decisions. If this is done in this case, I am of the opinion. that its proper solution need not be difficult. It has been several times held that where a horse, while running away, strikes an obstruction, the resulting injury is due to the running away, and not to the obstruction, because the former, and not the latter, is the proximate or moving cause of the injury. The law requires highways to be kept in condition for the ordinary uses, and it expects the driver to be in control of his horse, and does not assume to compensate those who are injured through a failure to maintain such control. The decisions do not refuse relief upon the ground that the horse was running away, but upon the ground that the uncontrolled impulse of the horse was the moving, i, e., proximate, cause. Where the loss of control is due to the negligence of the town, it has been held that the township is liable, but, where it is due to other causes, the contrary has been usually held.
We are cited to cases which hold that the mere shying of a horse is not sufficient to exonerate a township, the reason being given that shying is to be expected of a horse, and that control cannot be said to be lost if the horse is so far under the control of the driver as to be immediately stopped or brought back to the traveled way. It makes little difference whether we say that the horse was under control of the driver when he shied, or that the want of control was but momentary, and to be expected at times with any horse, from his common and known habit, and therefore an exception to the rule. In neither is ground for breaking down the rule. The case can, at most, be treated as an exception, and, though a precedent *392governing cases whére a horse shies suddenly a little out of the beaten track, it does not follow that the exception should cover all eases where the want of control is of short duration, or where caused from some vice or habit which cannot be said to be found in horses in general. A horse which, through fright at an object on one side of the road, leaves the traveled way, and, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the driver, cannot be made to return to it, and ultimately crosses the highway ditch, or goes to the verge of an embankment, which slides down with him, has done something more than to merely shy. To “shy” is defined as “to start suddenly aside as if a little frightened.” So, if the horse should rear, and fall against the carriage, throwing all down an embankment, or if he should refuse to obey the driver to go forward, and back up instead, overturning the buggy against a tree in the highway, or going down an embankment, the horse is beyond control, as much as though running away, and, to my mind, much more than when merely or momentarily starting and shying.
If these instances are enlargements of the adjudicated instances of shying, they are not within the exception, and, if one after another they are included within the exception, the rule will soon give way under the evolution of the exception. It is as much the. duty of the citizen to drive reasonably tractable horses as it is of the community to maintain reasonably safe highways, and as much the duty of courts to hold the former to the consequences of a failure of the performance of his duty as the latter; and it is, to say the least, fairly debatable whether the doctrine of proximate cause is not a reasonable and just one. It is not yet the law that the highways must be so level and smooth that a horse cannot capsize a carriage, and provided with barriers so strong that' a team cannot break them down, to the injury of the driver. Barriers may be required in some cases, as where the highway and its surroundings are of such a character as of themselves to create the danger of fright; but we may take judicial *393notice that barriers are usually limited to such places, and are not common along our highway ditches or causeways. The Case of Doak was correctly decided, in my opinion. The present case is substantially on all fours with Beall v. Township of Athens. The other cases are not cited, because referred to in the opinions of my brethren.
I think the judgment should be affirmed.