146 Mass. 596 | Mass. | 1888
The plaintiff brought his action to recover for injuries received while sitting upon his cab, from the negligent driving of a wagon against it by a servant of the defendant corporation. There was evidence tending to show that, at the time of the accident, he was violating an ordinance of the city of Boston, by waiting in a street without placing his vehicle and horse lengthwise with the street, as near as possible to the sidewalk, and that this illegal conduct contributed to the injury. There was evidence applicable in like manner to another similar ordinance, which requires every driver of a vehicle standing in a street so to keep his horse or horses and vehicle as not to obstruct the streets.
As to the alleged violation of each of these ordinances, the defendant asked the court to instruct the jury as follows: “If that unlawful act contributed to cause the alleged injury, the plaintiff was not in the exercise of due care, and therefore he cannot maintain this action.” The presiding judge declined to give this instruction, and gave none which we deem to be equivalent to it. He instructed the jury in these words: “ If, at the time of the injury to the plaintiff, he allowed his carriage to stand in the street in violation of this ordinance, such violation is evidence of negligence on his part; and, if such negligence directly contributed to the injury, the plaintiff cannot maintain the action. It cannot be said, as matter of law, that the fact that the plaintiff was violating a city ordinance necessarily shows negligence that contributed to the injury.” In another part of the charge it was indirectly intimated that, if the plaintiff’s unlawful act contributed proximately to produce the injury, he could not recover, but it was nowhere expressly stated.
The question before us then is, whether or not the defendant was entitled to this instruction, — in other words, whether, if
It has often been held that a violation of law at the time of an accident, by one connected with it, is evidence of his negligence, but not conclusive. Hanlon v. South Boston Horse Railroad, 129 Mass. 310. Hall v. Ripley, 119 Mass. 135. Damon v. Scituate, 119 Mass. 66. In recent times a large number of penal statutes have been enacted, in which the Legislature has seen fit to punish acts which are not mala in se, and sometimes when in a given case there is no actual criminal intent. On grounds of public policy, laws have been passed under which a person is bound to know the facts in regard to the subject with which he is dealing, when under possible circumstances ignorance would not be inconsistent with proper care. One who sells milk must know that it is not adulterated. An unlicensed' person must know that what he sells is not intoxicating liquor. Commonwealth v. Boynton, 2 Allen, 160. And if in a possible case he trespasses in innocent ignorance, the law gives him no relief. He can only appeal to the sense of justice and the discretion of the public authorities to save him from the punishment which the law would inflict. It is obvious that in suits for negligence, if the contributing conduct of the plaintiff is to. be considered as a whole, it may sometimes be found that he has not been guilty of actual negligence' or fault, although he has violated the law. One element of his action may be neglect of a duty prescribed by a statute, when there are other concurring elements which show that his course was entirely justifiable.
As a general rule, in deciding a question in relation to negligence, each element which enters as a factor into one’s act to give it character is to be considered in connection with every other, and the result is reached by considering all together. But, for reasons which will presently appear, illegal conduct of a plaintiff directly contributing to the occurrence on which his action is founded, is an exception to this rule. Such illegality may be viewed in either of two aspects: looking at the trans
In Bosworth v. Swansey, 10 Met. 363, Chief Justice Shaw, after referring to the rule that a plaintiff must be free from “imputation of negligence or fault,” says, in reference to unlawful travelling on the Lord’s day, “ This would be a species of fault on his part, which would bring him within the principle of the cases cited.”
In Jones v. Andover, 10 Allen, 18, Chief Justice Bigelow says, “ The term ‘ due care,’ as usually understood in cases where the gist of the action is the negligence of the defendant, implies not only that a party has not been negligent or careless, but that he has been guilty of no violation of law in relation to the subject matter or transaction which constitutes the cause of action.”
In Steele v. Burkhardt, 104 Mass. 59, an action for negligence in driving against the plaintiffs’ horse, which was left standing in a street in violation of an ordinance, Chief Justice Chapman considers the general subject of the plaintiffs’ due care, and then treats particularly the contention of the defendant that the plaintiffs were compelled to prove their violation of law in order to establish their case.
McGtrath v. Merwin, 112 Mass. 467, was an action founded on the defendant’s alleged negligence in starting the machinery of a mill, while the plaintiff was at work in the wheel-pit making repairs on the Lord’s day, and Mr. Justice Morton, in delivering the opinion, deals with the case solely upon the principle that courts will not aid a plaintiff whose action is founded upon his own illegal act, and says, “ The decisions in this Commonwealth are numerous and uniform to the effect that the plaintiff, being engaged in a violation of law, cannot recover, if his own
In Davis v. Guarnieri, 45 Ohio St. 470, Owen, C. J. states, as the second of three considerations upon which the doctrine of contributory negligence is founded, “ the principle which requires every suitor who seeks to enforce his rights or redress his wrongs to go into court with clean hands, and which will not permit him to recover for his own wrong.”
No case has been brought to our attention, and upon careful investigation we have found none, in which a plaintiff whose violation of law contributed directly and proximately to cause him an injury has been permitted to recover for it; and the decisions are numerous to the contrary. Hall v. Ripley, 119 Mass. 135. Banks v. Highland Street Railway, 136 Mass. 485. Tuttle v. Lawrence, 119 Mass. 276, 278. Lyons v. Desotelle, 124 Mass. 387. Heland v. Lowell, 3 Allen, 407. Steele v. Burkhardt, 104 Mass. 59. Damon v. Scituate, 119 Mass. 66. Marble v. Ross, 124 Mass. 44. Smith v. Boston Maine Railroad, 120 Mass. 490. And it is quite immaterial whether or not a plaintiff’s unlawful act contributing to his injury is negligent or wrong when considered in all its relations. He is pi’ecluded from recovering, on the ground that the court will not lend its aid to one whose violation of law is the foundation of his claim. Hall v. Corcoran, 107 Mass. 251.
While this principle is universally recognized, there is great practical difficulty in applying it. The best minds often differ upon the question whether, in a given case, illegal conduct of a plaintiff was a direct and proximate cause contributing with others to his injury, or was a mere condition of it; or, to state the question in another way, appropriate to the reason of the rule, whether or not his own illegal act is an essential element of his case as disclosed upon all the evidence. Upon this point it is not easy to reconcile the cases. It has been unanimously decided that in Gregg v. Wyman, 4 Cush. 322, there was error
The plaintiff relies with great confidence upon the case of Hanlon v. South Boston Horse Railroad, 129 Mass. 310, in which the presiding judge at the trial refused to rule, that, “ if the defendant was driving at a rate of speed prohibited by the ordinance of the city of Boston, and this speed contributed to the injury, this fact would itself constitute negligence on the part of the defendant, and would entitle the plaintiff to recover if he was in the exercise of due care,” and his refusal was held right by this court. In giving the opinion, after pointing out that driving at a rate of speed forbidden by the ordinance might have occurred without fault of the driver, and might have been justified by circumstances authorizing the jury to find that there was no negligence, Mr. Justice Colt said, “ It is not true that, if an unlawful rate of speed contributed to the injury, that alone would give the plaintiff a right to recover, if he was without fault.” There are intimations, without adjudication, to the same effect, in Wright v. Malden & Melrose Railroad, 4 Allen, 283, and in Lane v. Atlantic Works, 111 Mass. 136. See also Kirby v. Boylston Market Association, 14 Gray, 249; Heeney v. Sprague, 11 R. I. 456; Brown v. Buffalo State Line Railroad, 22 N. Y. 191; Flynn v. Canton Co. 40 Md. 312.
But there is nothing in the language used in Hanlon v. South Boston Horse Railroad inconsistent with the principle which we have already stated. That decision related to the liability of a defendant. It may be, wheve a penal statute does not purport to create a civil liability, or to protect the rights of particular persons, that a violation of it will not subject the violator to an action for damages, unless his act, when viewed in connection
The instruction requested in the case at bar would have become applicable only upon a finding by the jury that the plaintiff’s unlawful act contributed to cause the injury. The jury may have so found; and we are of opinion that upon such a finding, irrespective of the question whether viewed in all its aspects his act was negligent or not, the court could not properly permit him to recover. The instruction, therefore, should have been given.
The court rightly refused the instruction requested, that the plaintiff could not recover if at the time of the accident he was violating the ordinance, and so doing an unlawful act. This request ignored the distinction between illegality which is a cause, and illegality which is a condition of a transaction relied on by a plaintiff, or between that which is an essential element of his case when all the facts appear, and that which is no. part of it, but only an attendant circumstance. The position of a vehicle, which has been struck by another, may or may not have been one of the causes of the striking. Of course it could not have been struck if it had not been in the place where the blow came. But this is a statement of an essential condition, and not of a cause of the impact. The distinction is between that which directly and proximately produces, or helps to produce, a result as an efficient cause, and that which is a necessary condition or attendant circumstance of it. If the position of the plaintiff’s vehicle was such as, in connection with ordinary and usual concurring causes, would naturally produce such an accident, that indicates that it contributed to it. But, even in that case, external causes may have been so exclusive in their operation, and so free from any relation to the position of the vehicle, as to have left that a mere condition, without agency in producing the result. What is a contributing cause of an accident is usually a question for a jury, to be determined by the facts of the particular case; and such it has been held to be in many cases like the one before us. Damon v. Scituate, 119 Mass. 66. Hall v. Ripley, 119 Mass. 135. Welch v. Wesson, 6 Gray, 505.
The defendant’s third request for an instruction was rightly refused, for reasons which have already been stated. The statute referred to does not relieve the defendant from liability for negligence to a plaintiff whose unlawful act or want of due care does not contribute to his injury. In the opinion of a majority of the court the entry must be Exceptions sustained.