Volk v. Springhouse & Hilltown Turnpike Road Co.
Volk v. Springhouse & Hilltown Turnpike Road Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The duty of a turnpike company to keep its road in a travelable condition is higher than that exacted from municipal authorities. The obligation resting on municipal authorities is to keep the road reasonably safe for public travel. In Born v. Allegheny, Etc., Plank Road Co., 101 Pa. 334, and Lancaster Ave. Improvement Co. v. Rhoads, 116 Pa. 377, it is held that turnpike corporations are bound to keep their roads in repair and safe condition. As stated by Justice Clark, in Improvement Co. v. Rhoads, supra: “In such cases the liability to pay tolls is a consideration for the undertaking on the part of the corporation to furnish a safe road for the use of the traveler as an equivalent. It is the same in principle as any other case where service is performed
The matters contained in the second assignment of error are fully met by the charge of the court. This assignment is dismissed.
Augusta E. Volk, wife of Albert Volk, on October 5, 1913, was injured by being thrown from the rear seat of an automobile, when it struck or fell into a ditch, hole or depression in the defendant’s road. The automobile was driven by the plaintiff’s son, seventeen years of age, a registered driver", and is shown competent to drive a car. There is nothing in the evidence that would justify the court in saying as a matter of law that negligence of the driver, if any, was imputable to the mother: Little v. Central Disk, Etc., Telegraph Co., 213 Pa. 229. It does not appear who owned the car. The court submitted the question of imputed negligence to the jury. This is as much as the defendant had a right to expect under the facts in this case. Nor could the court declare that the plaintiff, in riding in the rumble seat of the car, going at a speed of fifteen miles an hour, was negligent. Her weight, the style of car used, the manner and speed in
We think the testimony of Albert Yolk in rebuttal was admissible to contradict the testimony of the defendant’s superintendent. The fourth assignment of error is overruled.
Judgment affirmed.
Reference
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- Negligence — Turnpike companies — Automobiles—Hole in road. A turnpike company is not an insurer of the safety of every person who travels over its road, and it is not liable merely because an accident happens by reason of some defect in the road. When charged in an action at law with liability for an injury received by one in traveling over the highway, it is under the same rules of evidence as any other corporation or individual that is charged with liability for an injury, that is, the plaintiff must prove negligence in the offending party to establish his case. The duty of a turnpike company to keep its road in a travelable condition is higher than that exacted from municipal authorities. The obligation resting on municipal authorities is to keep the road reasonably safe for public travel. Turnpike companies are bound to keep their roads in repair and safe condition, inasmuch as the payment of tolls is a consideration for the undertaking on the part of the corporation to furnish a safe road for the use of the traveler. In an action against a turnpike company to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by a heavy woman being thrown from the rear seat of a small automobile, when the machine struck a hole in the defendant’s road, the case is for the jury and a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff will be sustained, where it appears that the hole had been in the road for a time sufficient to charge the defendant with constructive notice, that the automobile, the ownership of which was not disclosed, was driven by plaintiff’s son seventeen years of age, a registered and competent driver, and that the machine was going at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. In such a case the court could not say as a matter of law that negligence of the driver, if any, was imputable to the mother; nor could it say that the plaintiff in riding in the rumble seat of the ear at the time, was negligent.