3 Pa. Super. 403 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1897
Opinion by
The plaintiff seeks to recover for injuries to his real and personal property caused by the flooding of his cellar with water, which, he alleges, escaped from the public water pipe at or near a fire plug which had been placed in the street by the borough authorities,, and left resting upon a stone drain leading from the plaintiff’s cellar. The plaintiff’s theory is that the fire plug apparatus was too heavy for the drain, and therefore crushed it, and thus opened a passageway for the escaping water through and along the drain into the cellar, and that the flooding was
The defense set up was that the work of laying the water pipe and putting in the fire plugs was done by an independent contractor in accordance with adopted plans ; that the borough authorities had no control over the work; and that the borough, therefore, was not responsible for negligence on the part of the contractor.
At the close of the charge the learned trial judge reserved the following question: “ The uncontradicted evidence in the case being that the digging of the water pipe trenches, the construction of the pipe line, and the setting of the fire plugs in the borough of Yorkville, were committed to contractors employing their own workmen, and acting and performing the work under the general supervision of officials of the borough charged simply with the duty of seeing that the work was properly done according to the plans and specifications, the question whether, under tins state of the evidence, the breaking or stopping of the plaintiff’s drain pipe by the workmen employed by said contractors, and the flooding of his cellar by reason thereof, can create any liability on the part of the borough to compensate the plaintiff in damages, is reserved.” To this reservation no objection was made or exception taken, and a verdict having been rendered for the plaintiff, the court afterward made absolute a rule for judgment for the defendant upon the point reserved, notwithstanding the verdict. The plaintiff duly excepted to this entry of judgment for the defendant, and appealed to this court.
We are met at the threshold of the case as presented here with an objection to our review of the cause further than that presented in the reserved point and the ruling of the court thereon, upon the ground that no exception was taken to the reservation at the time it was made, in form or substance, and that it is now too late to do so.
The reservation sets out the facts upon which the legal question is based, and, under the law, that question is of such-, a nature that it necessarily controls the case. It thus contains the essentials of a properly reserved point: Wilde v. Trainor, 59 Pa. 439. The facts contained in a reserved question may be found by the jury specially, or may be agreed upon by the
The opinion of the learned judge disposing of the reserved question fully vindicates his conclusion .on tins point upon reason and authority. In Painter v. Pittsburg, 46 Pa. 213, the general principle was enunciated that one person' cannot be held liable for the acts or negligence of another unless the relation of master and servant or principal and agent exist between them; that when an injury is done by a party exercising an independent employment, the employer is not responsible to the person injured; and that this rule applies with full force to
Under the law the judgment was properly entered on the reserved question in favor of the defendant, and it is therefore affirmed.