30 Minn. 74 | Minn. | 1882
This was an action to recover the value of a mule alleged to have been fatally injured by reason of defendant’s neglect to fence its road as required by law. As disclosed by the evidence the facts were these: The track of defendant’s road was not fenced where it crosses plaintiff’s land. One evening, as plaintiff was leading a span of mules to water, they, without fault on his part, escaped from him and ran upon the railroad, where one of them, while running along the track, broke his leg. The evidence is very meagre as to how the accident occurred, and leaves the matter largely to conjecture; but, so far as it throws any light upon the question, it t¡ends to show that while the mule was running and jumping along the railroad track, it set its foot into a small hole in the soil between the ties, and in some unexplained way broke its leg. The hole was a small one, “about the size of a mule’s foot,” and from two to four inches in size “each way.” There was no train along the track at the time of the injury. This was substantially all the evidence in the case.
Gen. St. 1878, c. 34, § 54, imposes upon all railroad companies the duty to build good and sufficient fences on each side of their roads. Section 55 of the same chapter provides that “all railroad companies shall be liable for domestic animals killed or injured by the negligence of .such companies, and a failure to build and maintain * * * fences as above provided shall be deemed an act of negligence on the part of such companies.” It has been urged that the liability of railroad companies under this statute, for injuries to domestic animals resulting from a neglect to build and maintain fences, extends only to those caused by collision with moving trains. Doubtless this class of injuries is much the most numerous, and is the one
But, on the other hand, it was neither the design nor the effect of the statute to make a railroad company liable absolutely for all injuries which would not have occurred had a fence been built, regardless of the fact whether such injury was the direct and natural, or only the remote and accidental, consequence of the absence of a fence, or whether the neglect to fence was merely the occasion and not the natural cause of the injury. The statute makes no such radical change in the general legal principles governing the law of negligence. The first part of section 55 is simply declaratory of the common law; the latter clause of the section simply adds one act or omission which shall be deemed negligence per se. But in determining the liability of a railroad company in a given case, the existing rules of law still apply. These are familiar and elementary. To entitle the plaintiff to recover, it is not enough that the defendant was negligent. Negligence is not actionable unless it be the proximate cause of the injury. Neither is it enough that, if a fence had been built, the mule would not have gotten upon the track, and hence would not have been injured. The omission to build the fence must have been the cause, and not the mere occasion, of the injury. The breach of duty on the part of the company was its neglect to build a fence. The damages for which it would be liable must be the natural and direct consequence of such neglect.
In strict logic it may be said that he who is the cause of loss should
All these different statements of the principle would, it will be seen, necessarily include in the category of remote damages, for which no recovery can be had, such as are the result of an accidental or unusual combination of circumstances, which would not be reasonably anticipated, and over which the negligent party had no control. blow, even if the most favorable and liberal statement of the doctrine be adopted and applied, we think this verdict cannot be sustained. If this animal had been struck by a passing train, it would
The fact is, the injury was not one reasonably to be apprehended, and did not follow as a natural dr ordinary sequence from the absence of a fence. We can see no real difference in principle between the case at bar and one where an animal strays upon a railroad track and is there killed by lightning or a stray rifle ball, or (if objection is made to the cases supposed because some external independent qiower intervened) a case where the animal, after getting upon the railroad right of way, ran a thorn into its foot, or was injured by the falling of a tree not previously deemed dangerous.
None of the cases cited by plaintiff go far enough to sustain him. In the case of Salisbury v. Herchenroder, 106 Mass. 458, the injury was the direct and natural result of suspending the sign over the street contrary to the city ordinance. In Siemers v. Eisen, 54 Cal. 418, the injury was the immediate and natural result of leaving a horse unhitched, contrary to ordinance. The case of Powell v. Salisbury, 2 Younge & J. 391, so often cited, is the one most analogous to
In the present case there was clearly no basis whatever for the theory advocated on the trial that even if defendant was not liable under the statute for its failure to build a fence, it might still be liable on some sort of common-law principles. It was either liable for the injury as the result of its neglect to build a fence as required by law, or it was not liable at all.
Order reversed and a new trial granted.
I agree to the final conclusion arrived at in the majority opinion, but not to the reasoning by which it is reached. Under our statute, I think, the liability of a railroad company for injuries to domestic animals going upon its so-called right of way, in consequence of the company’s neglect to build or maintain fences, is a liability for such damages only as result from the fact that the right of way is used for railroad purposes. In other words, it is a liability for what may for short be styled railroad damages only, or such as result from the fact that there is a railroad there. The injury resulting in this case to the plaintiff’s mule from stepping into the small hole between the ties, evidently does not come within this description of damages.