Home/Idaho Supreme Court/Mason Ex Rel. Mason v. Hillsdale Highway District

Mason Ex Rel. Mason v. Hillsdale Highway District

154 P.2d 490, 65 Idaho 833, 1944 Ida. LEXIS 109
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 20, 1944
DocketNo. 7151.
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 154 P.2d 490 (Mason Ex Rel. Mason v. Hillsdale Highway District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mason Ex Rel. Mason v. Hillsdale Highway District, 154 P.2d 490, 65 Idaho 833, 1944 Ida. LEXIS 109 (Idaho 1944).

Opinion

*837 GIVENS, J.

The morning of November 25, 1940, Mr. and Mrs. Mason, accompanied by their four year old son, drove from near Kimberly, their home, to Hazelton and then on the main highway leading from Hazelton to Rupert, turning south at the Greenwood Schoolhouse, intending to look at a farm which they considered renting. Respondent Mason and his wife, as the neighborhood unfolded, decided they were not interested in renting a farm in that community, and respondent turned his car around and drove back over the Milner-Greenwood highway which they had just come over, within the boundaries of the defendant highway district. This road (not a main and through highway and but lightly traveled) traversed a bridge over the Gooding Canal, 73 feet long and 18% feet wide between the felloe guards, with tread planks on it 18 inches apart. [Exhibit S.] Each tread plank was made up of three three-by-twelve planks. Seventy feet north of the Gooding Canal Bridge and at an elevation three feet below

*838 it was a cement culvert on the North Side Canal. [Exhibit D ] The roadway over the culvert was 17 feet wide. About

six feet south of the concrete culvert on the west side of the highway was an erosion into the North Side Canal, and May 8, 1941, the distance on the highway between the heads of the two eroded places was just 14 feet. Mr. Griffith, a witness for the highway district, denied there were any eroded spots November 25, 1940.

On the day in question there was a little snow on the ground, and the roads were covered with ice and slippery. According to respondent’s testimony, he was driving about 20 or 25 miles an hour as he drove north along, the road, and when he came within view of the Gooding Canal bridge, slowed down to-15 miles an hour and drove upon the tread planks. When he was almost half way across the bridge, the rear wheels of his car slipped off the tread plank's to the east. He applied the brakes, and the front wheels skidded to the west. He was unable to get the car back on the tread planks, and when he was off the bridge his car had cut to the east and he straightened it to the *839 right. He was unable to remember anything that happened after that. Other witnesses testified the tracks of the car indicated the car had gotten almost to the culvert when the left wheels skidded off the roadway [Exhibit X.], the

car apparently struck the north bank of the canal and landed on its left side in the canal. [Exhibit' U.] Mrs. Mason was killed, and respondent suffered fractures of a tibia and an ankle.

Mason sued the Hillsdale Highway District for injuries suffered by him, for medical expenses and hospital care, for loss of time and services, and for loss of his car, amounting to $10,819.35. In the second action Mason joined his seven children as plaintiffs, asking $25,000 for the death of Louise Victoria Mason, and $200 funeral expenses.

The complaints allege as grounds of negligence the longitudinal planked tracks (tread planks) across the bridge,

*840

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Bluebook (online)
154 P.2d 490, 65 Idaho 833, 1944 Ida. LEXIS 109, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mason-ex-rel-mason-v-hillsdale-highway-district-idaho-1944.