Chisholm v. The Atlanta Gas Light Co.

• Decision Date: 31 July 1876
• Citation: 57 Ga. 29
• Parties: F. N. Chisholm, plaintiff in error. v. The Atlanta Gas Light Company, defendant in error.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

57 Ga. 29

F. N. Chisholm, plaintiff in error. v. The Atlanta Gas Light Company, defendant in error.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

(Atlanta, July Term, 1876.)

*Non-suit. Practice in the Superior Court. Negligence. Before Judge Hopkins. Fulton Superior Court. October Term, 1812.

Reported in the decision.

T. P. Westmoreland, for plaintiff in error.

Collier & Collier; A. W. Hammond & Son, for defendant.

WARNER, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff, Chisolm, sued the Atlanta Gas Company, in the justice's court, for the sum of $100 00, for damages done to his store-house in the city of Atlanta, by the explosion of gas. The justice gave judgment for the defendant. The plaintiff entered an appeal to the superior court. On the trial of the appeal, the court, after hearing the plaintiff's evidence, on motion of the defendant, non-suited the plaintiff? whereupon he excepted.

1. There was no dispute that the plaintiff's store-house was injured the amount claimed by the explosion of gas therein, but the question is, whether there was sufficient evidence to make out a prima facie case of negligence on the part of the defendant to entitle the plaintiff to go to the jury under the law. It appears from the evidence that the store-house had been vacant two or three weeks before the explosion, which took place on the 5th of January, 1874. On the evening the explosion took place, the plaintiff had rented the store-house to some colored people for the purpose of having a supper there; the colored people did not use gas that night, but used candles. Rhodes, defendant's superintendent, a witness for the plaintiff, stated that plaintiff had gas fixtures in his store-house; that on the 28th of December, 1873, the defendant was notified that the house was vacant and that gas was no longer needed, and defendant was ordered to cut it off, whichwas done on that day by means of meter cock in *plaintiff\'s cellar. The witness stated that there were two ways to cut off the gas from plaintiff\'s house the one by a meter cock which was the property of the plaintiff, but was used by the defendant also; the other, by a service cock which was under the curb-stone, and which was the property of defendant and under its exclusive control; that if the gas had been cut off at the service-cock on the 28th of December, 1873, instead of at the meter-cock, the explosion in plaintiff\'s house could not have occurred; that in cutting off gas the defendant sometimes used the meter-cock, and sometimes the service-cock under the curb stone, than by the meter-cock in the cellar, for the reason that the service-cock, was under the exclusive control of defendan...