Hughes v. Atl. City & S. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 29 January 1914
• Citation: 85 N.J.L. 212,89 A. 769
• Parties: HUGHES v. ATLANTIC CITY & S. R. CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

89 A. 769

85 N.J.L. 212

HUGHES

v. ATLANTIC CITY & S. R. CO.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Jan. 29, 1914.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Action by Isaac Hughes against the Atlantic City & Shore Railroad Company. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed^ and new trial ordered.

Bourgeois & Coulomb, of Atlantic City, for appellant.

Scovel & Harding, of Camden, for appellee.

SWAYZE, J. The plaintiff, a passenger in a car of the defendant, was injured by fragments of glass from the explosion of an electric light bulb in the ceiling of the car. There was no proof of the cause of the explosion; the plaintiff went no further than to testify that "probably it was a weak bulb, and the voltage might have run up on it, and of course it had a tendency to burst the globe."

The learned trial judge, in view of the high degree of care required of a carrier of passengers, told the jury that "when an accident of this kind happens to some of the means of transportation, the law shifts the burden of proof from the plaintiff as to the explanation or showing the actual cause to the defendant, and imposes upon it the burden of making an explanation exculpating itself from negligence." The question he put to the jury was: "Has the defendant done that?" To leave no doubt of his meaning he added: "The explanation is one that you must pass upon, whether or not the burden which the law casts upon the defendant in a case of injuries, an accident of this kind, has been met. If it has, then of course the negligence that the law would infer from the proof of the facts of the accident and the nature of it does not exist, and the company would not be answerable at all."

The effect of this charge was to relieve the plaintiff from the duty to satisfy the jury, by the preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant had been negligent, and to deprive the defendant of his right, which we have said is a substantial one, to have the plaintiff bear the burden of the affirmative. Bien v. Unger, 64 N. J. Law, 596, 46 Atl. 593; McGilvery v. Electric Light & Power Co., 63 N. J. Law, 591, 44 Atl. 637. The learned trial judge distinctly said that this burden shifted to the defendant, and he did not even submit to the jury the question whether the plaintiff had established negligence; he treated that as a matter of legal inference, and only left to the jury to say whether the defendant had exculpated itself. He thus put upon the defendant, in a case where there was no direct evidence of negligence, a burden from which it would have been free in a case where there was direct evidence. Instead of the question that has been so much discussed in the cases, whether negligence may be inferred from the mere fact of injury, we now have the proposition that the inference of negligence is so strong that the jury need not consider it at all, but need only consider whether the defendant has exculpated himself.

This is an unwarranted extension of the application of the maxim res ipsa loquitur. The importance of the rule which finds expression in that maxim is found in the province of the trial judge, and not in the province of the jury. He is called on in the first instance to say whether there is any evidence of negligence to go to the jury; in the absence of direct evidence he may, in cases where the maxim applies, hold that the circumstances are such as will, unexplained, permit the jury to draw the inference of negligence; but that inference is still one for the jury and not for the court They may not believe the witnesses; the circumstances may be such that the jury will attribute the injury to some cause with which the defendant has nothing to do; they may find the inference of negligence too weak to persuade their minds; they may think a reasonably prudent man would have been unable to take precautions to avoid the injury; and, in any event, they may render a verdict for the defendant. This is within their province even when there is no explanation by the defendant. When there is such explanation, it is for the jury to decide, just as in the ordinary case of whatever kind, what the actual facts are, and what inference should be drawn therefrom. The most that is required of the defendant is explanation, not exculpation; and that explanation may leave the mind in equipoise, in which case the defendant would be entitled to a verdict because the plaintiff has failed to prove his case by the weight of the evidence.

The question discussed in the cases that involve the application of the maxim res ipsa loquitur has always been whether mere proof of the injury justified a jury in drawing an inference of...