39 Iowa 45 | Iowa | 1874
The negligent act of a party must be the immediate, proximate, cause of an injury to render him liable therefor. . If the injury be the remote consequence of the act, it is not a ground of recovery. The act must have produced immediately, directly, the injury complained of. The same rule must apply to the negligence of a party seeking to recover for the careless act of another, which will defeat his right of action. Such negligence must have contributed directly, proximately,
II. An instruction given to the jury is to the effect that, although plaintiff was negligent, yet if defendant’s servants,, after they had notice of plaintiff’s negligence, could have avoided the injury by the exercise of ordinary care, defendant is liable.' The correctness of this rule is not questioned. -See Saunders on Negligence, pp. 65, 60; Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, §§ 25, 26, 36. But it may be regarded as inapplicable to the peculiar facts of this case. No prejudice, however, resulted to defendants from the instruction, if it be so considered. It is, therefore, no ground of objection to the judgment.
■ IV. An instruction was asked as to the effect of the negligence of plaintiff which contributed to the injury. It is in
V. It is lastly claimed, that the evidence fails to support the conclusion that defendant’s servants were negligent. We think otherwise. The train was behind time, and running at an unusual speed; no signals were given of its approach to a crossing of a highway, where the accident occurred, and the cars were not visible for some distance from that point; the cow killed was seen by the engineer at a distance in advance of the cars, which gave opportunity to check their speed so that the animal would have had time to escape; but no effort was made to do so. The jury were certainly justified in .finding these facts from the evidence.
The foregoing discussion disposes of all points made in the brief and argument of counsel for defendant; others, if any there be, we are not required to notice.
AFFIRMED.