Samuel Freeman Miller

“ It still remains that the company was the legal entity which owned the bridge; that if it had borrowed money, or created debts, the cities would not have been liable for them without an express agreement to that effect. And if the negligence by which plaintiff suffered was solely the negligence of the bridge company and its officers, the city of Manchester would not have been liable because of the stock held by it in the company or the money advanced to it. ”

“ This depends, in our opinion, not so much on the question whether the place where the injury occurred was, by law, placed under the exclusive control of the city, as whether the city authorities had so far assumed the care of it as one of the streets of the town as to incur an obligation to be diligent and watchful in the performance of that duty. ”

“ The judge, in his charge to the jury, attached much importance to the fact that the bridge was built by money advanced by Richmond and Manchester, and assumed that the company was a mere matter of form, and though chartered by the legislature, was only an agency of the two municipal corporations to connect them by a bridge spanning the river which runs between them. ”