Glynn v. Central R.R. of New Jersey

• Decision Date: 03 March 1900
• Citation: 175 Mass. 510,56 N.E. 698
• Parties: GLYNN v. CENTRAL R. R. OF NEW JERSEY.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

175 Mass. 510

56 N.E. 698

GLYNN v. CENTRAL R. R. OF NEW JERSEY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

March 3, 1900

COUNSEL

S. A. Fuller and G. W. Anderson, for plaintiff.

Benton & Choate and Robt. Thorne, for defendant.

OPINION

HOLMES C.J.

This is an action for personal injuries. The plaintiff was at work for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company at Stonington, Conn., and was engaged in coupling a train to a car belonging to the defendant, when his sleeve was caught by a bolt projecting from the deadwood of the car, and his hand was crushed. We assume that the car was in such a condition that, apart from the question of notice, it would have warranted a finding that the defendant was liable had the car been in its possession, and the plaintiff in its employ. We assume further, without deciding that the evidence warranted a finding that the car had come from the possession of the defendant recently, and in the same condition as that in which it was at the time of the accident. But, nevertheless, we are of opinion that the judge who tried the case was right in directing a verdict for the defendant.

There was no dispute that, after the car had come into the hands of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, and before it had reached the place of accident, it had passed a point at which the cars were inspected. After that point, if not before, we are of opinion that the defendant's responsibility for the defect in the car was at an end.

There is more obscurity than there ought to be, perhaps, upon the limits of liability in general. The fact that the damage complained of would not have happened but for the intervening negligence of a third person has not always been held a bar although negligent conduct, so far as it is a tort, is unlawful in as full a sense as malicious conduct, and although, ordinarily, even a wrongdoer would not be bound to anticipate a will ful wrong by a third person. See Elmer v. Locke, 135 Mass. 575, 576, and cases cited in Clifford v. Atlantic Cotton Mills, 146 Mass. 47, 48 15 N.E. 84; Engelhart v. Farrant [1897] 1 Q. B. 240. Compare Hayes v. Inhabitants of Hyde Park, 153 Mass. 514-516, 27 N.E. 522. But when a person is to be charged because of the construction or ownership of an object which causes damage by some defect, commonly the liability is held to end when the control of the object is changed.

Thus, the case of Clifford v. Atlantic Cotton Mills, just cited, shows that the mere ownership of a house so constructed that its roof would throw snow into the street, and therefore threatening danger as it is, without more, whenever snow shall fall, is not enough to impose liability when the control of it has been given up to a lessee, who, if he does his duty, will keep it safe. In the case at bar the car did not threaten harm to any one, unless it was used in a particular way. Whether it should be used in a dangerous way or not depended, not upon the defendant, but upon another road. Even assuming that the car had come straight from the defendant at Harlem River, the defendant did no unlawful act in handing it over. Whatever may be said as to the responsibility for a car dispatched over a connecting road before there has been a reasonable chance to inspect it, after the connecting road has had the chance to inspect the car, and has full control over it, the owner's responsibility for a defect which is not secret ceases. See Sawyer v. Railway Co., 38 Minn. 103, 35 N.W. 671; Wright v. Canal Co., 40 Hun, 343; Mackin v. Railroad Co., 135 Mass. 201, 206.

Upon the same principle that commonly, when a new control comes in, the former responsibility is at an end, a vendor who makes no representation is not liable to a remote purchaser of the article sold for damage done by defects in it. Davidson v. Nichols, 11 Allen, 514, 518; Losee v. Clute, 51 N.Y. 494; Curtin v. Somerset, 140 Pa. St. 70, 21 A. 244, 12 L. R. A. 322; Necker v. Harvey, 49 Mich. 517, 519, 14 N.W. 503. An extreme case is Collis v. Selden, L. R. 3 C. P. 495.

It is recognized in Clifford v. Atlantic Cotton Mills that the rule is different when the use from which the damage ensued plainly was contemplated by the lease. Jackman v Arlington Mills, 137 Mass. 277; Harris v. James, 45 Law J. Q. B. 545. See Devlin v. Smith, 89 N.Y. 470. In Heaven v. Pender, 11 Q. B. Div. 503, 515, it was considered that the use not only was contemplated, but was...