131 Ky. 718 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1909
Opinion of the Court by
Reversing.
The Lanham' Lumber Company, a corporation, is engaged in the manufacturing of hardwood flooring, etc., at Lebanon, Ky. On the night of July 4, 1907, at some time after midnight, a fire started in the boiler room at its plant and spread from there to the main building, a few feet away, and in a comparatively short time they were all destroyed, except one warehouse. The origin of the fire is unknown. The Lebanon, Louisville & Lexington Telephone Company is a Kentucky corporation with its principal place of business at Lebanon, where it is engaged in operating a telephone system. The Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company is also a Kentucky corporation, doing a general telephone business throughout Kentucky, and especially in Marion county, where it connects with the Lebanon, Louisville & Lexington Company’s telephone system, and furnishes the connection for the last named company with other points in Kentucky and elsewhere. It appears that the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company now owns the Leba
Each company filed a demurrer to the petition, and also filed a motion that plaintiff be required to furnish a list of the property contained in the building. This latter motion was sustained, and plaintiff filed a list of the property lost in the fire. The demurrers were overruled. Each company then answered, traversing the allegations of the petition in so far as it sought to charge them with negligence, and pleaded affirmatively that plaintiff’s loss was due to the negligence of its night watchman, and that this failure to-
Several grounds are relied upon for reversal, chief of which is that the court erred in overruling the demurrers to the petition. After setting out at some length a description of the buildings burned, for which a recovery is sought, and the fact that plaintiff is a subscriber to defendants’ telephone, service, and. that telephones are maintained in the offices of the city officials, the state of facts, upon which plaintiff seeks to hold defendants liable, is pleaded as follows : “On July 5, 1907, the night watchman of plaintiff, in due performance of his duties, discovered that the boiler house at plaintiff’s manufactory was on fire, but that if the fire company could be promptly summoned the-fire would be arrested before it could reach and burn the mill and other buildings, which were close to, but disconnected from, the said boiler house. The said night watchman immediately, at about 15 minutes after 2 o’clock a. m., went to plaintiff’s telephone, which was in good working order and
Plaintiff says that, ■ but for the gross and willful negligence of defendant in failing and refusing to respond to the call by plaintiff’s watchman, and in failing'and refusing to connect plaintiff’s office telephone with that in the city hall, the fire alarm would have been given, the fire bell promptly rung, the fire company would have reached the fire at least one-half hour before it did reach it, and before the fire had extended beyond the boiler house, and the fire would in such event have been easily put out with no loss to plaintiff, save a very trifling amount of
The petition does not charge that defendants were under any contract with the city of Lebanon to maintain a fire alarm system in the city, and hence their liability must be determined under the general contract with their patrons. They agree to furnish connection between the patrons, upon request and subject to such reasonable rules.as might properly be adopted
An analysis of the petition shows that it charges: That, if connection had been promptly established
If everything had worked out as plaintiff figures it should and would, had there been no delay in effecting
Questions similar to these have heretofore been before us. In the case of Smith v. Western Union Telegraph Company, 83 Ky. 104, 4 Am. St. Rep. 126, 7 Ky. Law Rep. 22, a recovery was sought against the telegraph company for failing to deliver a message.
The acts of negligence in this case from which we have quoted are. pleaded just as in the case at bar, and they were all sustained by the proof; but the court said they were too speculative and remote to support a cause of action. In that case the charge of negligence was the removal of the means for extinguishing the fire.. In the present case it is the act which delayed the arrival of the means to extinguish the fire. In Hazel v. City of Owensboro, 99 S. W. 315, 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 235, 30 Ky. Law Rep. 627, plaintiff’s house was destroyed by fire of unknown origin. The street in front of the property was so torn up and out of repair that the fire engine could not reach the fire in time to save the building. Suit was brought against the city for damages. The ground relied upon, as in the case at bar, was that by the city’s negligence the fire engine was delayed in reaching the fire until too late to save the building. Suit was brought against the city for damages. The ground relied upon, as in the case at bar, was that by the city’s negligence the fire engine was delayed in reaching the fire until too late to save the building. The court, in denying the plaintiff a right to recover, said: “Her loss directly resulted from the fire. The negligent condition of the street had nothing to do with the origin of the fire, so that the question is: Could or would the fire have been extinguished if the street had been in good- condition for public travel; or, to put it in another way, was the destruction of her house caused by the negligent condition of the street? This- is altogether problematical. Certain it is. that the city was in no wise responsible for the fire, and in this particular it committed no breach of duty. Nor can it be said that it could reasonably be antici
Many cases are cited by appellee, and we have examined them. Some are based upon a state of facts that render them inapplicable, while others are of a class where their liability is fixed by special contract, and a recovery is allowed because of the breach thereof, as in Shelbyville Water & Light Company v. McDade, 122 Ky. 639, 92 S. W. 568, 29 Ky. Law Rep. 119, and similar cases. In the cases of Metallic Compression Casting Company v. Pittsburg, etc., Railway Company, 109 Mass. 277, 12 Am. Rep. 689, and Little Rock Traction Company v. McCaskill, 75 Ark. 133,
The facts upon which a recovery is sought in the present case are entirely too speculative and remote