207 Pa. 629 | Pa. | 1904
Opinion by
The defendant company’s freight yard, know as the Sheraden yard, is located in the valley of Cork’s run, about four miles west of its passenger station in the city of Pittsburg. The yard is a gravity yard, with a one per cent descending grade to the east, and is upwards of 4,000 feet long and lias an average width of 500 feet. It is the eastern terminus of the company’s freight business. Here, cars are delivered to it by its eastern, southern and northern connecting roads and trains are made up for the transportation of freight to the west. Cork’s run discharged its waters into the Ohio river and drained the land now occupied by the freight yard. On the construction of the yard, the company replaced the run by a large culvert or sewer of various dimensions, being six feet in diameter at the beginning and thirteen feet by sevénteen feet at its mouth. The mouth or eastern end of the culvert was in the open space of the run, about 200 feet from the river and about 2,800 feet from its inlet in the defendant company’s freight yard. Midway between the river and the end of the culvert the run was crossed by a bridge, a part of a street known as River avenue in the borough of Espíen. There are several catch basins or sewer'drops in the freight yard which conduct the surface water to the culvert; and at various points there are man holes and branch sewers opening into the culvert. At the inlet or western end of the sewer it is about three feet, and at its mouth or eastern .end about eighty feet, below the surface. The bottom of the sewer is about 100 feet lower at its mouth than at the inlet or first catch basin.
On the afternoon of May 12, 1902, the defendant’s servants were making up a freight train in the Sheraden yard. There were fourteen tank cars in the yard filled with naphtha which were to be a part of the train. The crew began to make up the train by first dropping a caboose and nine cars on track No. 3. They next attempted to put the tank cars in position in the train, and in dropping them by gravity down a descend
The question of the defendant company’s negligence was settled against it by the verdict and is not. raised here. The learned counsel for the defendant in support of their appeal maintain that the plaintiff’s injuries were so remote as to preclude a recovery for the damages he sustained, and that the question, under the facts of this case, was one of law for the court and not of fact for the jury.
In Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Hope, 80 Pa. 373, Agnew, C. J., delivering the opinion, says: “ The jury must determine whether the facts constitute a continuous succession of events, so linked together, that they become a natural whole, or whether the chain of events is so broken, that they become independent, and the final result cannot be said to be thé natural and probable consequence of the primary cause—the negligence of the defendants.” In Hoag v. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad Company, 85 Pa. 293, Paxson, C. J., states it to be the true rule in such cases “that the injury must be the natural and probable consequence of the negligence—such a consequence as, under the surrounding circumstances of the case, might and ought to have been foreseen by the wrongdoer as likely to flow from his act.” In Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Kerr, 62 Pa. 353, Chief Justice Thompson delivering the opinion says that the rule “ is not to be controlled by time or distance, but by the succession of events.” In Haverly v. State Line, etc., Railroad Company, 135 Pa. 50, our Brother Mitchell speaking for the court, referring to the cases cited, says : “ The three leading cases above referred to, though frequently cited on opposite sides of the same argument, are not at all in conflict in principle. The different results which were reached in them depended not on any different view of the law but of the facts, and on the application of the familiar doctrine that, where a plain inference is to be drawn from undisputed
Applying these tests to the facts of the present case we are convinced tliat the jury was justified under the evidence in finding that the negligent action of the defendant’s servants was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries. We must assume, as the jury has found, that the naphtha was ignited by the negligent act of the defendant's employees in drawing the punctured car near the burning switch light when the naphtha was flowing from'it. The natural and inevitable consequence of that act would be apparent to the dullest intellect and must be presumed to have been foreseen by any employee who possessed the requisite intelligence to perform the duties required of him in operating a car containing such a dangerous substance as naphtha. The compai^’s servants who were in control of the car saw the naphtha flowing from it and great quantities running along the tracks and into the sewer drop ; they further saw the naphtha splashing from the ear and falling-on the ground and railroad tracks as the car was being moved in the direction of the switch light. Possessed of a knowledge of these facts and knowing generally the highly combustible character of naphtha, the defendant’s employees in removing the car, under the circumstances, must have foreseen the fact that if the naphtha was once lighted the fire would be uncontrollable and would naturally follow the naphtha in its course and so far as it flowed. Nothing could be more reasonable or probable, and hence to be anticipated by the defendant’s servants who were bound to foresee the ordinary and natural consequences of their conduct.
The learned judge in the opinion directing judgment to be entered on the verdict says : “We have witness after witness
We are at a loss to understand how the appellant can successfully support its position that the coiirt and not the jury should have determined under the evidence in this case the question whether the negligent act of the defendant company was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries ; or- see
■ If the facts of a case are in dispute, the question of remote or proximate cause must go to a jury; if, however, the facts are undisputed and the inferences to be drawn from them are plain and not open to doubt by reasonable men, it is the dut}r of the court to determine the question as a matter of law:
In Webster v. Monongahela River Consolidated Coal & Coke Company, 201 Pa. 278, cited by counsel, the case was, against the objection of the defendant company, submitted to the jury who, under the evidence, found for the plaintiff. We held that there was sufficient evidence to submit to the jury on the question of proximate cause. What was there said as to the negligent act being the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries was in support of the position that the facts disclosed by the evidence were sufficient to warrant the jury in finding in his favor, and not a determination of the fact itself by this court.
We are clear that there was ample evidence in this case to warrant the jury in finding that the explosion resulting in the plaintiff’s injuries was caused by the gas coming in contact with the fire carried through the sewer from the freight yard, and that the negligent act of the defendant’s servants in causing the naphtha to be ignited was the proximate cause of the injurious consequences to the plaintiff. Whether, therefore, that question was submitted to the court or to the jury, the finding of either tribunal must be against the defendant company.
After carefully considering the questions raised on this record we have discovered no reversible error in the trial of the cause and the judgment is, therefore, affirmed.