Cyclopedia of the law of private corporations Volume 5 - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 Excerpt: ...to take charge of the harbor and docks (see pages 104, 107, 118). The case decided in Queen's Bench (Gilbert v. Corporation of Trinity House, supra) is decided on the same principle as that which governed the Mersey Docks Case. It was a case where the care and man to be used in that operation had been thrown down, and allowed to remain on the road, so as to form a dangerous obstruction to travellers at night: that the trustees or workmen, or others employed, permitted the stones to remain on the road without adopting the precautions neaessary to be taken to prevent danger; that the pursuer, having occasion to travel along the road by night, in a gig, accompanied by his son, the gig oame in contact with the stones and was overturned, by which the pursuer himself was injured, and his son so seriously hurt that he died in consequence of the injuries received.' Recovery was sought, and verdict was given and judgment rendered in the trial court, for damages by way of compensation for the pursuer's injuries and solatium (recognized by Scotch law) for the son's death. On appeal by the defender to the House of Lords, the interlocutors of the trial court were reversed. Lord Chancellor Cottenham delivered the principal opinion on the appeal and, after disposing of an alleged conflict between the Scotch and the English law bearing on the subject in the doing of which he stated that "in England, we have long heM that trustees of a turnpike-road are not liable in cases of this sort. Baker v. Harris,65 Humphries v. Mears,66 and Hall v. Smith.67 In all these cases it was distinctly held that such trustees are not answerable but for their own personal default. There is another class of cases in which it has been decided that trustees exceeding the authority given them...