Case, for personal injuries from a defective highway. The defect was shown in the highway, and the manner of the plaintiff’s driving at the time of the injury. The evidence was conflicting as to whether the horse was frightened and unmanageable, or was unmanageable from having the bits out of his mouth when near and at the defective place.
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1876-12-05
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently March 1962
10 state decisions
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.
¶1
A traveller on a highway must exercise ordinary care and prudence in the selection of a reasonably safe horse, wagonand harness.
Clark
v.
Barrington,
41 N. H. 44;
Tucker
v.
Henniker, id.,
317. These'cases also decide, that a traveller, having made the required selection, is bound to exercise only ordinary care and prudence in their management.
¶2
Whether the plaintiff in this case made a suitable selection of a horse, wagon, and harness, and whether he managed them with due care and prudence, were questions for the jury.
Stark
v.
Lancaster,
57 N. H. 88;
Palmer
v.
Portsmouth,
43 N. H. 265. The defendants’ request clearly treated them as questions of law, and was properly denied.
¶3
Although the plaintiff was injured by the negligence and fault of the defendants, still he was required to use reasonable care in obtaining a cure of his injury; and if his injury demanded the attention of a surgeon, and he used reasonable diligence and care in employing one of ordinary skill in his profession, he would be entitled to recover the damages resulting from the injury, notwithstanding they were increased by bad treatment of the surgeon.
Eastman
v.
Sanborn,
3 Allen 594;
Tuttle
v.
Holyoke,
6 Gray 447;
Ingalls
v.
Bills,
9 Met. 1.
