260 Pa. 199 | Pa. | 1918
Opinion by
Under authority to do so, conferred upon it by the Acts of June 26,1895, P. L. 336, and May 11, 1911, P. L.
The first reason urged in asking for a reversal of the judgment is that, as the county is a quasi-municipal corporation, and took over and improved the township road as an agent of the State, it is not answerable for any negligence in failing to keep it in proper repair and condition, because not made so by statute. By the sixteenth section of the Act of 1895 it is declared: “All such roads and highways, and all parts thereof, improved in accordance with the provisions of this act shall be deemed, taken and treated as and become public highways of the said county, and shall be subject to the control and supervision of the proper county commissioners; and it shall be the duty of said several counties to keep, maintain and repair the same whenever and as often as it shall be found necessary, and all road supervisors, authorities, persons or townships heretofore required to maintain and keep in repair such roads or parts thereof, shall thereupon and thereafter cease to have any management of or control over said roads, or any part thereof, and such supervisors, authorities and townships are hereby relieved from all duty and responsibility in and about the care, maintenance and repair of all roads improved under this act and becoming county roads”; and
Tbe Act of 1895 relieves township authorities from “all duty and responsibility in and about tbe care, maintenance and. repair of all roads” improved under tbe provisions of tbe act and becoming county roads. Tbe said duty and responsibility must, for tbe safety of tbe public in traveling over tbe highways, rest somewhere, and it is by clearest implication imposed by the statute upon a county taking them over. What before tbe taking
The plaintiff testified that he was walking along the road on New Year’s night, about seven or eight o’clock; that it was so dark he could not see where he was going; that he did not know where he was on the road; that he was trying to keep in the middle of it; that he heard a vehicle coming and took a step or two from what he supposed was the middle of the road, and fell into the run. The questions of his contributory negligence and the negligence of the county were submitted under the following correct instructions: “The question for you to determine is whether or not, considering the nature of the road at that place and all the circumstances, it was the duty of the county to maintain some kind of a guard rail there......I submit that question to you, gentlemen, as a question of fact, and the method of determining that is to determine whether that was reasonable and whether in your minds what the county commissioners did (because they are just acting in the place of the supervisors of the township) — whether what they did was ordinary care under the circumstances, or whether in not putting up such a guard rail they were guilty of a breach of duty, or ordinary care. That is the real question in this case. If, in your opinion, considering all the circumstances, that was a place where it was not the duty of the county commissioners to maintain a guard rail, then they were not guilty of negligence in not maintaining it. If it was not their duty — and of course in all these cases the burden is on the plaintiff to show by the weight of the evidence that there was negligence — if you are not satisfied by the weight of the evidence there was negligence on the part of the county commissioners in not keeping
The assignments of error are all overruled and the judgment is affirmed.