Lamb v. Old C. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 03 September 1885
• Citation: 140 Mass. 79,2 N.E. 932
• Parties: Henry W. Lamb v. Old Colony Railroad Company
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

140 Mass. 79

2 N.E. 932

Henry W. Lamb v. Old Colony Railroad Company

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

September 3, 1885

Argued January 14, 1885

Suffolk.

Tort for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by the alleged negligence of the defendant. Trial in the Superior Court, before Mason, J., who ruled that there was no evidence for the jury, and directed a verdict for the defendant; and the plaintiff alleged exceptions. The facts appear in the opinion.

Exceptions overruled.

J. G Abbott, (G. A. Sawyer with him,) for the plaintiff.

J. H Benton, Jr., for the defendant.

Field, Devens, & Colburn, JJ., absent. W. Allen, J.

OPINION

W. Allen, J.

As the plaintiff was driving his horse along a highway parallel to and adjoining the defendant's railroad, his horse was frightened by the smoke from the engine of a train passing on the railroad in a direction opposite to that in which the plaintiff was going, and the plaintiff was injured in consequence. After the plaintiff's evidence was all in, the court ruled that there was no evidence for the jury; and the plaintiff excepted to the ruling. The evidence is not stated in the exceptions, but a full report of it is annexed and referred to in them. It does not appear upon what ground the ruling was placed, or what questions of law were intended to be presented. It is not a case where a single question of fact involving a single proposition of law is presented upon evidence stated in the exceptions; but all the testimony applicable to distinct questionsof fact, and involving in its application distinct propositions of law, is sent to us to examine and discover upon what question and for what reason it was ruled, or may be now held, that the evidence was insufficient to prove the plaintiff's case. Nearly the whole of the bill of exceptions is taken up with statements of what the plaintiff claimed the evidence tended to prove. No ruling was asked or given in relation to this. As the ruling and exception are to the sufficiency of the evidence, the question of the sufficiency of the facts claimed by the plaintiff to be proved is not before us. The ruling was, that, upon the whole evidence, the plaintiff could not recover. We think that the ruling was right, because the evidence was not sufficient to prove that the defendant was negligent.

The defendant had a right to run its trains on its railroad adjoining the highway, and was not responsible to travellers on the highway for the consequences of noise, vibration, or smoke caused by the prudent running of its trains. Favor v. Boston & Lowell Railroad, 114 Mass. 350. The smoke which frightened the plaintiff's horse was occasioned by "firing up" the engine, -- that is, mending the fire, or adding coal to it, -- the ordinary effect of which is to occasion the emission for a short time of very black, dense smoke from the smoke-stack. The plaintiff contended that there was evidence that it was practicable to run the train for the whole distance where the railroad adjoined the highway without firing up; and that the act of firing up on the stretch of railroad adjoining the highway was unnecessary for the ordinary running of trains, and exposed travellers to an unnecessary...