Beach v. Schoff
| Decision Date | 01 January 1857 |
| Parties | Beach versus Schoff. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Ryan, for defendant in error.—The judge, in his charge, gave the defendant the benefit of the assumption that the plaintiff's raft was an obstruction. But, if he had the right to remove it as such, to effect a passage, he could not in doing so commit a wanton injury: 2 Harris 306. The court told the jury that the defendant, in removing the raft, would have to use such ordinary care as a careful man would have used with his own property. This direction is sustained by the case cited 2 Harris 306. The cases from 2 Barr 114, and 3 Steph. N. P. 2364, are not analogous. When Beach cut the plaintiff's raft he did all that was done in those cases. When he set the logs adrift he did more, and was liable for it as a trespasser.
Winthrop Beach, the plaintiff in error and defendant below, in running lumber down the Cowanesque river, in Tioga county, found a raft of spars belonging to the plaintiff lodged on a mill-dam. Alleging that the spars prevented his passing over the dam with safety, he removed two of them, one of which was lost. To recover for the lost spar, and the expenses incurred in putting the raft again in order, this action of trespass was brought.
Upon the trial the defendant's counsel requested the court to charge the jury,
1st. That if the plaintiff by his negligence contributed to the injury, he could not recover, although the defendant might have been also guilty of negligence.
2d. That if the jury believed from the evidence, that the plaintiff's raft was run and left by him in the course for three or four weeks, and until the next freshet; and the defendant in descending the river with his rafts was obstructed by the plaintiff's raft, the defendant had the right to remove the plaintiff's spars to effect a passage, and in doing so is not liable for the loss of plaintiff's spars, unless he was guilty of gross or wilful negligence.
To the first proposition the Court of Common Pleas answered, that it was not applicable to the case.
To the second, that the defendant had the right to remove the spars from the course, but in so doing he w...
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Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Yarbrough
... ... unnecessary injury to the owner of the raft. Mark v ... Hudson River Bridge Co., 103 N.Y. 28, 8 N.E. 243; ... Beach v. [57 Fla. 108] Schoff, 28 Pa. 195, ... 70 Am. Dec. 122; 1 Wood on Nuisances (3d Ed.) §§ 17, 71; ... Joyce of Law of Nuisances, §§ 1, 2, 368; ... ...
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McKeesport Sawmill Co. v. Pennsylvania Co.
...him to get his own raft loose, and it was held that, to the extent that this was necessary, he was justified. So, in Beach v. Schoff, 28 Pa. 195, 70 Am.Dec. 122, defendant, running lumber down a navigable stream, found a raft of spars belonging to the plaintiff lodged on a milldam. As they ......
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Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Joullian
...its own property even at the expense and loss of the appellee, as is clearly established by the evidence in this case. Beach v. Schoff, 28 Pa. 195, 70 Am. Dec. 122. And refusal of the charges asked by the appellant as set out in the transcript of the record in the sixth and seventh assignme......