16 Kan. 252 | Kan. | 1876
The opinion of the court was delivered by
This is another of those actions brought against the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad Company for damages claimed to have resulted from the negligence of the company in permitting fire to escape from its engine No. 9, on October 12th 1871. We have already decided four of those cases, to-wit, that of William M. Stanford, (12 Eas. 354,) of Neil Campbell, of Joseph Rickabaugh, and of Stephen Shaw, (ante, 200, 209.) In deciding those cases we have decided every question involved in this case, and several others besides. In fact, only the main questions involved in those other cases are involved in this, to-wit: 1st, May negligence on the part of the railway company in permitting fire to escape from its engines, be shown wholly by circumstantial evidence, or must it be shown by some direct proof of some particular act of negligence? 2d, Where the fire which is negligently permitted to escape from the engines of the railway company, does not fall upon the plaintiff’s property, but falls on the property of another, setting it on fire, and then spreads by means of dry grass, stubble and other
As to the first question, we have decided that circumstantial evidence is sufficient; as to the second question, we have decided that the injury is not too remote to constitute the basis of a cause of action; and we are entirely satisfied with our decision of both of these questions. As to the first question, this case furnishes the strongest kind of evidence of the correctness of the decision. It was not within the power of the plaintiff to furnish any direct evidence of any particular act of negligence. It was shown by the defendant’s witnesses that the engine from which the fire escaped was a first-class engine, that it was in good order and condition, and that it was operated by a careful and skillful engineer, to the best of his knowledge and ability. Now for the purposes of this case we will suppose that all of this is true, except the mere fact of operating the engine; and indeed the jury so find. The only negligence that they find is carelessness on the part of the engineer in operating the engine. Now how could the plaintiff prove this carelessness or negligence on the part of the engineer by any direct evidence? If the engineer was guilty of any carelessness or negligence, probably he alone knew it; and possibly even he-himself would not have been fully aware of his own carelessness or negligence. Now the plaintiff proved that said engine on said 12th of October caused a large number of fires, a dozen or more; that other engines operated over the same track on the same day, and before and since, did not produce any such result; and that good engines properly managed would not under the same circumstances be likely to produce any such result. Now it would seem to us that such evidence would lead irresistibly
As to the second question, it is scarcely necessary to do more than to refer to the decision of this court in the case of
Since the promulgation of the decision in the Stanford case, an elaborate article on this same question has been written by Dr. Francis Wharton, and published in the Southern Law Review, ("Vbl. 1, New Series, page 729.) That article controverts the doctrine enunciated in the Stanford case. But we think the argument of the learned Doctor will be found to be wholly unsatisfactory, and the conclusion reached by him not founded upon either reason or authority. Even the decisions which he refers to, with some exceptions, do not as we think sustain his views. With reference to the irrelevant matters discussed by the Doctor we do not take issue. It is only upon the main proposition, that is, that the railroad company is responsible only for property destroyed by it by fire where the company directly communicates the fire to such property, that we take issue. He claims that where the railroad company does not directly set fire to the plaintiff’s property, but sets fire to some other person’s property, and that sets fire to the plaintiff’s, that the act of the railroad company is too remote a cause of the burning of the plaintiff’s property 'to constitute the basis for an action against the railroad company. Now, the word “cause” has various meanings, and shades of meaning. Philosophically speaking, the sum of all the antecedents of any event, constitutes its cause. Ordinarily however we consider each separate antecedent of an event as a cause for such event, provided however that the event could not have happened except for such antecedent. Taking this view of cause and effect, there may be many causes conjointly and consecutively contributing to
The questions in this case, are as follows: 1st, Was the railroad company negligent in permitting the fire to escape? 2d, Would the plaintiff's property have been destroyed by' fire as it was destroyed, except for the fire which the railroad company permitted to1 escape? 3d, Could the railroad company by the exercise of reasonable diligence at or before the time of permitting said fire to escape have anticipated the burning of the plaintiff’s property as likely to occur, and as the natural and probable consequence of permitting said fire to escape? If the first and third of these questions should be answered in the affirmative, and the second in the nega
The judgment of the court below is affirmed.