Adams v. Young
| Decision Date | 23 February 1886 |
| Citation | 4 N.E. 599,44 Ohio St. 80 |
| Parties | ADAMS v. YOUNG. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Error to district court, Mercer county.
Isaac W. Young brought suit before a justice of the peace for $299.97, for household and kitchen furniture destroyed by the burning of his family residence in the town of Macedon, in Mercer county. On appeal Young averred in his petition that Adams owned and controlled a steam engine, boiler, and fixtures, and a machine for dressing staves, and propelled by steam; that the engine, boiler, and fixtures were placed within 100 feet of a frame stable in the town, and within 300 feet of his dwelling-house; and that the smoke-stack attached to the boiler was defective and unsafe in this, that the screen upon the smoke-stack was coarse, and furnished no protection against sparks, and was in other respects defective, and the defendants well knew the same; and that on the second day of May, 1878, the wind was blowing heavily from a south-westerly to a north-easterly direction, and in the direction of the stable and the dwelling; and one George Watson, who was the employe and agent of defendant, and who was managing the machinery, did, on said second day of May 1878, fire up and start the machinery, and so negligently carelessly, and improperly run and operate the same by reason of the defective and insufficient screen aforesaid, and careless and negligent conduct and management of the machinery, and under the gale of wind aforesaid and the proximity of the machinery to the stable and dwelling aforesaid, that the sparks from the smoke-stack set fire to the stable and the dwelling-house so occupied by plaintiff. Plaintiff therefore avers that by carelessness, negligence and improper conduct and management of the machinery, boiler, smoke-stack, etc., and under the gale of wind aforesaid , by the agent and employe of defendant, the defendant did set fire to and burn up and destroy the goods and chattels, etc., the property of plaintiff.
To the petition Adams answered as follows: (1) That he admits that the plaintiff was, at the time the same was consumed by fire, the owner of the personal property, as averred in the amended petition, and that the defendant further admits that, at the time, he was the general owner of the engine, boiler, smoke-stack, and machinery described in the amended petition; but the defendant, in further answer to the amended petition, says that he denies each and every averment therein contained not hereinbefore admitted. (2) And the defendant for a second cause of defense, and for a further answer to the amended petition, says that the stable described in the amended petition was, at the time of the happening of the pretended grievances complained of, situated 100 feet or more in a north-easterly direction from the engine, smoke-stack, and machinery described in the amended petition, and that the dwelling-house of one James S. Crawford was then situated 200 feet or more in a north-easterly direction from the stable; that the house of Crawford then contained large quantities of gunpowder, coal-oil, and other explosive and highly combustible substances; and that the property of plaintiff was situated in a frame building 60 feet or more north of the house of Crawford. And the defendant avers that the fire which burnt and consumed the said property of plaintiff was communicated to said house of Crawford by sparks and cinders from said stable, and from said house of Crawford to said house in which plaintiff's said property was situated, and from said last-named house to said property of plaintiff, and that in no other manner was said personal property set on fire and destroyed or injured. The said defendant therefore prays that he may go hence without delay, and with his costs.
To the second defense Young demurred because the same did not state facts sufficient to constitute a defense. This demurrer was sustained, and the cause was tried upon the petition and first defense. The jury found that Young ought to recover of Adams. A motion for a new trial was overruled, and a judgment for Young was entered.
On proceedings in error the district court affirmed the judgment, and plaintiff in error now seeks to reverse these judgments.
Where fire is negligently thrown from a mill smokestack, and carried to a building outside the mill property, and thence to another building of a third party, and thence to other property that is damaged by the fire whether such negligence is the proximate cause of such damage is a question of fact for the determination of the jury under the instructions of the court.
Was the negligence of Adams the proximate cause of the loss sustained by Young? The law does not regard an injury from a remote cause . There is no dispute as to the legal proposition; the difficulty is as to its proper application to the particular case. The sustaining the demurrer to the second defense is the only complaint of the plaintiff in error. There is no complaint of the trial on the first defense, in which the jury found against the plaintiff in error, and in which the jury must have found that his negligence was the proximate cause of the loss of the goods.
Does the second defense show, as a matter of law, a bar to Young's recovery? This defense is that the fire which burnt and consumed the property was communicated to the house of Crawford by sparks and cinders from the stable, and from the house of Crawford to the house where the property was situated, and then to the property. It is not claimed that this fire was not the same fire communicated to the stable by sparks from the smoke-stack when Adams' agent negligently and carelessly fired up and started the machinery. So, from the petition and answer, it is shown that the fire started by Adams is the fire that consumed the goods. Adams does not aver or claim there was any new agency or cause at any point of the line of this fire, and does not aver or claim that the ‘ gale of wind’ increased in force or changed in direction. The stable and the houses were not causes of communicating the fire, but they were only conditions of the communication, existing when the fire was started. Strictly, the law knows no cause but a responsible will; and, when such a will negligently sets in motion a natural force that acts upon and with surrounding conditions, the law regards such human actor as the cause of resulting injury. ‘ As a legal proposition, we may consider it established that the fact that the plaintiff's injury is preceded by several independent conditions, each one of which is an essential antecedent of the injury, does not relieve the person by whose negligence one of these antecedents has been produced, from liability for such injury.’ Whart. Neg. § 85.
Adams does not aver his ignorance of the surrounding conditions, or that there was anything unusual about them, or any change as to them. The objection as to distance through the air is disposed of by the averments of the answer that the fire was thus communicated; the surrounding conditions being as they were, and no other cause being shown. There is no averment that this loss is not a probable and ordinary result of the negligence of the plaintiff in error; and this principle is an important test, if it is not the only test. Whart. Neg. § 150.
Ryan v. New York Cent. R. Co. , 35 N.Y. 210, and Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Kerr , 62 Pa. St. 353, have been referred to as decisive here. The courts rendering those decisions have sufficiently ‘ distinguished and explained’ them.
In case of Webb v. Rome, W. & O. R. Co. , 49 N.Y. 420, FOLGER, J., on page 427, says:
And the court there held:
‘ He who, by his negligence or misconduct, creates or suffers a fire upon his own premises, which, burning his own property, spreads thence to the immediately adjacent premises, and destroys the property of another, is liable to the latter for the damages sustained by him.’
And, on the facts there, also held:
‘ In an action for the damages, that the questions as to whether defendant was negligent in the use of its property, as to whether the injury was probable consequence of the negligent acts and omissions, were properly submitted to the jury.’
In Pennsylvania R. Co. v. Hope , 80 Pa. St. 373, Chief Justice AGNEW says, on page 379:
‘ But let us examine the case of Railroad Co. v. Kerr , and it will be found to be free from much of the criticism expended upon it.’ ‘ It was not held in Railroad v. Kerr that when a second building is fired from the first, set on fire through negligence, it is a mere conclusion of law that the railroad company is not answerable to the owner of the second; or that if a fire is communicated from the locomotive to the field of A., and spreads through his field to the adjoining field of B., A. may be reimbursed by the company, while B. must set down his loss to a remote cause, and suffer in silence.’
-Thus answering Fent v....
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