Hoag v. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad Co.

• Decision Date: 19 November 1877
• Citation: 85 Pa. 293
• Parties: Hoag & Alger <I>versus</I> Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Co.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 293

85 Pa. 293

Hoag & Alger versus Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Co.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

October 18, 1877.

November 19, 1877.

October 18th 1877.

Before AGNEW, C. J., MERCUR, GORDON, PAXSON, WOODWARD and STERRETT, JJ. SHARSWOOD, J., absent

Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Venango county: Of October and November Term 1877, No. 174.

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Charles W. Mackey, for plaintiffs in error.—It was for the jury to say, from the evidence, whether, from the time the obstruction was struck by the defendants' engine, to the time the plaintiffs' property was set on fire, there was a continuous succession of events, and that those events were so linked together that they became a complete and united whole; or whether there were intervening agencies — agencies that could not have been foreseen, and which should not have been anticipated, and that through the interposition of these, the succession was so completely ruptured that the destruction of the property could not be said to be the natural and reasonable result of the original negligence of the defendant: Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Hope, 30 P. F. Smith 373, and Raydure, Watson & Co. v. Knight, 2 W. N. C. 713.

McCalmont & Osborn, for defendant in error.—The injury in this case is much more remote than in the case of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Kerr, 12 P. F. Smith 353. In that case the hotel stood only thirty-nine feet from the warehouse that took fire from the sparks of the locomotive; while in this case the property was burned two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet from the place where the oil took fire. If the defendant is liable for the loss of the plaintiff's property, they would also have been liable had the burning oil set the bridge on fire or burned the boats in the river a mile below.

The case of the Pennsylvania Railroad v. Hope, 30 P. F. Smith 373, does not rule this case. In that case it was one continuous fire. There was no intermediate agent in it, any more than there would be if a building was fired at the roof and from thence communicating with the balance of the building, and burning it all. While in this case, without the waters of Oil creek being swelled to an unusual height, the fire from the burning oil could not have been communicated to or reached the plaintiff's property. Had the waters of the creek been at an ordinary height the burning oil would have run into the road or into the creek, or both, and been consumed without injuring plaintiff's property.

Mr. Justice PAXSON delivered the opinion of the court, November 19th 1877.

This was an action on the case to recover compensation for certain property destroyed by fire, caused, as was alleged, by the negligence of the defendants. The facts, so far as they are essential to elucidate the point in controversy, are as follows: The plaintiffs were the occupiers of a piece of land situated within the limits of Oil City, on the western bank of Oil creek. The railroad of defendants is constructed along said creek, over the land of the plaintiffs and at the base of a high hill. On the afternoon of April 5th 1873, during a rain storm, there was a small slide of earth and rock from the hill-side down to and upon the railroad. About ten minutes prior to the accident, one of the defendants' engines had passed over the road in safety. At that time no slide had occurred. This engine was followed in a few minutes by another engine drawing a train of cars loaded with crude oil in bulk. The latter engine ran into the slide, was thrown off the track, ran on about one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet, when the tender, which was in front of the engine, was overturned into Oil creek; the engine itself was partly overturned; two or three oil cars became piled up on the track and burst. The oil took fire, was carried down the creek, then swollen by the rain, for several hundred feet, set fire to the property of the plaintiffs and partly consumed it. The question of negligence in defendants' engineer in not seeing the obstruction and stopping his train before reaching it is not raised upon this record, and need not be discussed. The only question for our consideration is, whether the negligence of the defendants' servants was the proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiffs' property. The answer to the plaintiffs' third point, embraced in the second specification of error, raises this question distinctly. The court was asked to say: "That if the jury believe from the evidence, that the accident complained of was the result of negligence on the part of the defendant, and that by reason of such negligence, the oil, ignited by the engine attached to the train, ran immediately down to Oil creek, where it was carried by the current in the space of a few minutes to the property of the plaintiffs, when it set fire to and destroyed said property, the plaintiffs are entitled to recover, provided they did not in any manner contribute to said accident." The court answered this point in the negative, and then instructed the jury that as a matter of law, upon the facts in the case, the plaintiffs were not entitled to recover, which instruction is assigned here for error.

It was strongly urged that the court erred in withdrawing the case from the jury, and the recent cases of Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Hope, 30 P. F. Smith 373, and Raydure v. Knight, 2 W. N. C. 713, were cited as...