Residents' unease likely after $100G Orrills Hill ATV accident payout

Some of the ruts along southern discontinued portion of the road. (Lebanon Voice file photo)

LEBANON - A Lebanon man injured in an ATV collision on Orrills Hill Road more than four years ago has been awarded $100,000 in a liability case against a homeowner whose house straddled the road, The Lebanon Voice has learned.

The unidentified then-44-year-old man was injured the afternoon of July 25 when his ATV rear-ended the ATV of a 13-year-old who had braked suddenly due to massive ruts in the road.

The injured man was pushed into the handlebars when he hit the youngster's ATV, former Assistant Rescue Chief Jason Cole said at the time.

The ruts and washout from poor drainage still plague the discontinued road near where the accident occurred about three quarters of a mile south of the intersection of Orrills Hill and Prospect Hill roads and Schoolhouse Lane.

The minor involved in the accident was unhurt.

The injured man was taken to Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.H., with what were described as nonlife-threatening injuries, but people familiar with the incident say he did undergo some surgery in order to repair his wound.

The judgment was confirmed recently by a relative of the homeowner, who since has moved from the neighborhood. An Insurance Company covered the full amount of the award, according to the relative, who didn't want to be identified.

The ruling appears to validate the opinion of noted Professor Emeritus Orando E. Delogu of the University of Maine Law School of Portland, who maintained in an interview with The Lebanon Voice in August 2014 that homeowners along the road could be held liable in the event of an accident on their side of the road in front of their house.

The doctrine of attractive nuisance, in which a landowner fails to remedy or properly notify those of a peril on their property, could pave the way for legal action, Delogu said.

"Many private roads in Maine that are unimproved are gated for that very reason," Delogu said in the interview.

He also suggested that residents or the town put up signs that read, "Dangerous Road" or "Hazardous Road" to help indemnify them further in the event of another incident in which someone is injured.