13 Ind. 213 | Ind. | 1859
Suit commenced in the Court of Common Pleas, by Wright, against the Indianapolis and Cincinnati Railroad Company, to recover for stock killed by the engines of the company.
Judgment below for the plaintiff.
No attempt was made to prove that the stock was killed through any negligence on the part of the company in running the engines; but the right to recover is rested on the following facts:
Near the point where the stock, consisting of seven head of cattle, was killed, was a small creek. Over this creek the railroad had built a culvert. Down the creek from this
The facts in this case lay no foundation for liability on the part of the railroad company. The water of the creek flowed in its natural current; The freshet was the act of God, and the drift, its natural consequence. The railroad company did not divert the drift from its. natural course, but so guided it in it, as to prevent injury to their own, without increasing the danger to the property of others. If the poles' could not resist the natural flowage of the drift, they would hardly have withstood the accumulated drift and culvert which would have finally been swept against them, if the drift had not been passed off by itself.
The judgment is reversed with costs.
Cause remanded, &c.