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90 Mass. 436

Counter v. Couch

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided September 15, 1864

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1864-09-15

Tort to recover damages for an injury sustained from a collision upon a highway. At the trial in the superior court, before Morton, J., it appeared that the plaintiff, a boy of less than twelve years old, was running in the road a short distance behind a horse and sleigh, which met and turned out for the defendant, who was coming from the opposite direction with a horse and sleigh, and very soon afterwards the defendant came into collision with the plaintiff.

Decided 1864-09-15

Metcalf, J.

¶1There is no legal ground for the support of these exceptions. It is too plain and well established to require the citation of authorities, that the jury were correctly instructed .that the burden of proof was on the plaintiff to show that he was in the exercise of ordinary care, that is, reasonable care, when he was injured, and that his injury was caused solely by the defendant’s negligence. Even if the defendant, by neglecting to attach three bells to some part of his horse’s harness, incurred a penalty of twenty dollars, under the Gen. Sts. c. 77, § 4, and thus rendered himself liable to the plaintiff for all dam ages sustained by him “by reason of such offence,” he certainly did not, by that neglect, render himself liable for the injury inflicted on the plaintiff, unless that injury was caused solely by that neglect. Kidder v. Dunstable, 11 Gray, 342.

¶2Exceptions overruled»

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