177 Pa. 306 | Pa. | 1896
Opinion by
We take the facts as stated by the court below, as follows : “ On the 26th of October, 1893, the plaintiff, having bought a return ticket, went as a passenger upon the railroad of the defendant company from Frankford to Holmesburg. After spending the day there attending to' some matters of business, he concluded to come back upon a way train due at Holmesburg at five minutes after six in the evening. While waiting for this train, the plaintiff stood on the platform of the station,
The court in banc having afterwards refused to take off the nonsuit, we have this appeal.
Was the negligence of defendant the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury ? Judge Pennypacker, delivering the opinion of a majority of the court below, concluded it was not, and refused to take off the nonsuit. Applying the rule in Hoag v. Railroad Co., 85 Pa. 293, to these facts, the question on which the case turns is: “Was the injury the natural and probable consequence of the negligence, — such a consequence as under the surrounding circumstances might and ought to have been foreseen by the wrongdoer as likely to flow from his act.”
As concerns the situation of plaintiff at the time of his injury, and the relation of that fact to the cause, whether near or remote, we do not consider it important. He was where he had a right to be, on the platform of the station; that lie had purchased a ticket for passage on defendant’s road and was waiting
The rule quoted in Hoag v. Railroad, supra, is in substance the conclusion of Lord Bacon, and the one given in Broom’s Legal Maxims. It is not only the well settled rule of this state, but is, generally, that of the United States. Professor Jaggard, in his valuable work on torts, after a reference to very many of the cases decided in a large number of the states, among them Hoag v. R. R. Co., comes to this conclusion: “It is admitted that the rule is difficult of application. But it is generally held that in order to warrant a finding that negligence, or an act not amounting to wanton wrong, is a proximate cause of an injury, it must appear that the injury was the natural and probable consequence of the negligence or wrongful act, and that it ought to have been foreseen in the light of the attending circumstances : ” Jaggard on Torts, chap. V. Judge Cooley states the rule thus: “ If the original act was wrongful, and would, naturally, according to the ordinary course of events, prove injurious to some others, and result, and does actually result, in injury, through the intervention of other causes not wrongful, the injury shall be referred to the wrongful cause, passing through those which were innocent:” Cooley on Torts, 69. This, also, is in substance the rule of Hoag v. Railroad Co. All the speculations and refinements of the philosophers on the exact relations of cause and effect help us very little in the determination of rules of social conduct. The juridical cause, in such a case, as we have held over and over, is best ascertained in the practical affairs of life by the application to the facts of the rule in Hoag v. Railroad Co.
Adopting that rule as the test of defendant’s liability, how do we determine the natural and probable consequences which
What we have said thus far is on the assumption, the accident was caused solely by the negligence of defendant, or by the concurring negligence of defendant and the one killed going upon the track with a locomotive in full view. This being an action by an innocent third person, he cannot be deprived of his remedy because his injury resulted from the concurrent negligence of two others. He fails because his injury was a consequence so remote that defendant could not reasonably foresee it.
But there is another view which may be taken of this evidence. Assuming defendant was negligent, did that negligence contribute in any degree to the result ? The uncontradicted evidence showed the train could be seen from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards distant; plaintiff himself testifies he heard it coming, although he heard no whistle or bell; and all his witnesses had notice of it; even those sitting in the waiting room got up to go out, supposing it was their train; some heard the rumbling, some saw the headlight. Assume, then, the fact to be that no warning was given by bell or whistle, and in that particular, defendant, in its general duty to the public, was negligent, was this the cause of the injury? To so find, we must presume the deceased and her companion failed to hear or see what all the others saw or heard. There is no reason for such presumption. While, in the absence of any evidence on the question, the presumption would be, that the two women, before crossing, stopped, looked and listened, and then, because no warning was given, they, without apprehension of danger, attempted to cross, still, when all the other witnesses with like opportunity either saw the headlight or heard the rumbling of the approaching train, the reasonable presumption is they saw and heard it too. If this be so, they attempted to cross, with the same knowledge of the same peril, they would have had if the bell had been rung and whistle blown; therefore,' the sole cause of the injury was not the negligence of defendant, but the negligence of deceased. In such case, there could have been no recovery by the representatives of the deceased woman,
On both grounds we think the nonsuit was properly entered. The judgment is affirmed.