Finnegan v. Fall River Gasworks Co.
| Decision Date | 22 June 1893 |
| Citation | 159 Mass. 311,34 N.E. 523 |
| Parties | FINNEGAN v. FALL RIVER GAS-WORKS CO. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Hugo
A. Dubuque, for plaintiff.
Andrew J. Jennings, for defendant.
In the opinion of a majority of the court the exceptions must be sustained. The evidence for the plaintiff tended to show that his intestate was killed by inhaling gas while he was in the cellar of a building of the defendant in pursuance of his duty as an employe of the water board of the city of Fall River, for the purpose of reading a water meter. There was no evidence how the gas got into the cellar, nor any evidence of the defendant's negligence, beyond the facts that the gas was there, and that the ventilation of the cellar was stopped up; but it appears that the defendant, by taking water voluntarily entered into a relation, the result of which, as it knew, was to require some one to enter its premises in order to read the water meter. It was bound to use reasonable care to prevent the place thus necessarily entered by the deceased from being a death trap. The jury might have found that it knew or ought to have known of the presence of gas in the cellar in quantities that might be dangerous, and that it might have prevented the accumulation by opening the ventilator, or might have put the meter in a different place. We are of opinion that they might have found the defendant guilty of negligence towards the deceased. See Smith v Gaslight Co., 129 Mass. 318.
We must take it that there was a perceptible smell of gas when the deceased entered the cellar, but that he was acting under a certain stress of duty. We cannot say that the jury would not have been warranted in finding that the risk did not appear to be great, and, in fact, would not have been great if the ventilator had been open, and that, in view of the exigency the deceased could take such risk as was manifest without losing the protection of the law. Pomeroy v. Inhabitants of Westfield, 154 Mass. 462, 465, 28 N.E. 899.
There was evidence for the jury, whatever may be thought of its weight, that the deceased had a period of conscious suffering before death. One of the doctors testified to that effect. To be sure, he had not had any experience of this kind of asphyxiation personally or with patients, but his general competency as an expert seems not to have been questioned and, although it might not be...
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General Elec. Co. v. Board of Assessors of Lynn
...from the printed page alone, and, subject perhaps to the exercise of some discretion, may be admitted." Finnegan v. Fall River Gas Works Co., 159 Mass. 311, 312-313, 34 N.E. 523 (1893). See Boston Gas Co. v. Assessors of Boston, 334 Mass. 549, 574, 137 N.E.2d 462 (1956) quoting Commonwealth......
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Mounsey v. Ellard
...holdings in Toomey v. Sanborn, 146 Mass. 28, 14 N.E. 921; Gordon v. Cummings, 152 Mass. 513, 25 N.E. 978; and Finnegan v. Fall River Gas Works Co., 159 Mass. 311, 34 N.E. 523. In the Toomey case, supra, the court held that since a city trash collector was lawfully using the passage-way at t......
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Andrews, In re
...opinion testimony is typical of much expert testimony. McCormick, Evidence, § 15 (2d ed. 1972). See Finnegan v. Fall River Gas Works Co. 159 Mass. 311, 312--313, 34 N.E. 523 (1893); Moore v. Cataldo, 356 Mass. 325, 330--331, 249 N.E.2d 578 As to (4), the oral testimony of the police officer......
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Schuchman v. Stackable, 5-88-0562
...contained in the Lawson opinion is the following language in which Wigmore quotes Justice Holmes: "Holmes, J., in Finnegan v. Gas Works Co., 159 Mass. 312, 34 N.E. 523 (1893) (receiving testimony that after asphyxiation there is a period of conscious suffering before death, the physician ha......