The appellant maintained a ticket office in the city of Little Rock, and advertised the fact by means of a large wooden sign fastened to the wall over the entrance from the street, fifteen feet above the sidewalk. The sign fell upon the appellee and injured him without fault of his, while he was upon the sidewalk. This appeal is prosecuted to reverse a judgment for damages in the sum of $750, recovered by the appellee for the injury.
When the sign-board was first put up, it was securely fastened. Its weight was supported by brick projections from the wall. Subsequently the servants of an electric light company removed it from its fastenings in order to run electric wires into the railway office. That fact was known to the railway agent in charge of the office. He had been warned at the outset, by the contractor who put the sign in the position, that the electric light workmen would be compelled to loosen the fastenings if they were permitted to follow instead of preceding him in their work. The sign was replaced in position by the electric light workmen, and two months thereafter fell and injured the plaintiff. An inspection of it after the accident showed that the wires which were used to hold it on two of the three hooks which held it in position had been cut with scissors close to the sign. The supposition of all the witnesses was that the cutting was done by the electric light workmen. There was no positive proof of that fact. The sign fell in the month of March. There was testimony tending to show that the usual March winds of this latitude prevailed at the time, while other witnesses thought there was no disturbance of any object on the street by the wind.
The railway complains of the following part of the charge to the jury : “If you find from the evidence that the defendant caused the sign mentioned in this' action to be placed on the side of and in front of its ticket office in the city of Little Rock, and over and above the sidewalk, which is a public highway, and that while the plaintiff was on said sidewalk and under said sign, the same fell of its own weight from its place and upon the plaintiff and injured him,, you are instructed that the fact of the falling of said sign in the manner aforesaid raises a presumption of negligence in maintaining said sign, and you should find for the plaintiff, unless you should find that said presumption is overcome by a fair preponderance of evidence going to show that a proper degree of diligence had been exercised by defendant.”
It is argued that the charge directs the jury to presume-negligence without finding proof of it.
The sign was placed in a position where it was sure to fall' upon the sidewalk, if it should fall at all, in a much fre.quented part of the city; it was maintained there by the defendant solely for its convenience; it was heavy and required precaution in fastening it in position to prevent it from falling; it fell “ of its own weight,” that is, because of insufficient fastenings to hold it under ordinary circumstances, and thereby an injury was inflicted upon one who-was rightfully in the public street.
Upon such a case found, negligence is an inference of law. The reason is as follows: The defendant was under a duty to the public to exercise common prudence to place and keep its sign in such position as not to endanger the safety of pedestrians in the street. As long as it performed that •duty, no injury would be inflicted in the ordinary course of things. The happening of the accident is evidence therefore of the neglect cf the duty, in the absence of proof that it happened out of the ordinary course. Mullen v. St. John, 57 N. Y., 567; Kearney v. London Ry. Co., L. R., 6 Q. B., 759; 10 Central L. J., 261, and numerous cases cited.
The fact that the electric light company was an independent contractor, and not the servant of the railway, in performing the work in the prosecution of which the wires were cut, did not relieve the railway of its duty to the public to see that the sign was secure after the contractor had •completed his work. Khron v. Brock, 144 Mass., 516.
If the injury had been inflicted through the negligence of the contractor’s servants while in the execution of the contract, no liability would have attached to the railway. Railway v. Yonley, 53 Ark., 503. But no such case was made by the proof. The court did not err therefore in rejecting the railway’s prayer to charge upon the subject of its non-liability for work done by an independent contractor.
Other requests to charge the jury preferred by the defendant were rejected, but all they contained that could legally be demanded to go to the jury was submitted in the court’s-charge. As there is no error, the judgment is affirmed.