A Stump in the Road Brings a $5,000 Lawsuit Against Stevens County
After a wagon wheel struck a stump on the LeClerc road, Mrs. K. P. Baker sues for a broken arm and surgical costs.
Mrs. K. P. Baker has commenced suit against Stevens County, in which she claims damages of $5,000 and $100 for surgical treatment, on account of a broken arm, which she alleges was fractured in an accident which occurred on the LeClerc road, in the Pend Oreille valley, in May.
According to the complaint she, with a woman named Proctor, was driving in a wagon when one of the wheels struck a stump standing in the road and the lurch of the vehicle threw the plaintiff to the ground, and by the accident not only her arm was broken, but she was seriously injured in other ways.
“One of the wheels struck a stump standing in the road and the lurch of the vehicle threw the plaintiff to the ground.”
In 1908, a rough road and a stump could upend a life—and the county could be held responsible. The suit is an early reminder that infrastructure is not abstract: potholes, stumps and sidewalks have always been where the public’s duty to maintain safe passage meets a citizen’s broken bones.
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