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106 Mass. 276

Randall v. Eastern Railroad

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 15, 1871

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1871-01-15

Tort to recover for personal injuries alleged to have been occasioned to the female plaintiff by her falling off a bridge by which a highway in Charlestown crosses the defendants’ railroad, and which the defendants were bound to keep in repair, but had negligently failed to fence. At the trial in this court, before Colt, J., it appeared that the night of the accident was very dark, and there was no light of any kind in the neighborhood of the place of the accident.

Relies on Macomber v. City of Taunton

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1918

10 state decisions

5018711880189019001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Gray, J.

¶1The exception taken in this case is founded solely upon the alleged negligence of the city of Charlestown to provide proper lights at the place in question. But cities and towns are under no obligation to light highways. Sparhawk v. Salem, 1 Allen, 30. Macomber v. Taunton, 100 Mass. 255. It does not therefore appear that there was any evidence that the negligence of the city of Charlestown, or of any other corporation or person than the defendants, contributed to the accident. The question sought to be presented by the defendants’ requests for instructions does not appear to have arisen in the case ; and the defendants show no ground of exception to the instructions given, as applied to the case on triai. Exceptions overruled.

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