Opinion
Decided May 5, 1936.
ACTION, for negligence for personal injuries incurred by a prisoner at the defendant's house of correction. He was hurt while doing some required work, under the direction of the superintendent of the house by a defective staging which the defendant furnished.
The court (James, J.) transferred the plaintiff's exception to an order sustaining a demurrer to the declaration.
John J. Moke (by brief), for the plaintiff.
Norris Cotton, Solicitor, for the defendant, furnished no brief.
The case of O'Brien v. County, 80 N.H. 522, is decisive against the plaintiff. It held that counties are not liable for defaults in the exercise of public governmental functions without statutory provision therefor. And the principle of exemption of towns from liability under similar defaults in governmental maintenance, as declared in Doolittle v. Walpole, 67 N.H. 554, and Gates v. Milan, 76 N.H. 135, was invoked. Special reasons suggested in the O'Brien case as possibly confirming the result did not take it out of the application of the general rule.
Exception overruled.