Nelson v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company

• Decision Date: 15 December 1882
• Parties: S. J. Nelson v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

14 N.W. 360

30 Minn. 74

S. J. Nelson v. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company

Supreme Court of Minnesota

December 15, 1882

Appeal by defendant from an order of the district court for Freeborn county, Farmer, J., presiding, refusing a new trial. The case is stated in the opinion.

Order reversed and a new trial granted.

Cameron Losey & Bunn, for appellant, cited Morrison v Davis, 20 Pa. St. 171; Railway Co. v. Reeves, 10 Wall. 176; Denny v. N. Y. C. R. Co., 13 Gray 481; A., T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Edwards, 20 Kan. 531.

Lovely & Morgan, for respondent.

The neglect of the statutory duty to fence was a proximate cause of the injury. 2 Thompson on Negligence, 1232; Cooley on Torts, 70; Siemers v. Eisen, 54 Cal. 418; Salisbury v. Herchenroder, 106 Mass. 458; Mil. & St. P. Ry. Co. v. Kellogg, 94 U.S. 469; Clemens v Hannibal & St. J. R. Co., 53 Mo. 366; Fent v. Toledo, etc., Ry. Co., 59 Ill. 349; Lake v. Milliken, 62 Me. 240; Fairbanks v. Kerr, 70 Pa. St. 86; Powell v. Salisbury, 2 Younge & J. 391; Lee v. Riley, 18 C. B. (N. S.) 722.

Mitchell J. Berry, J., concurring.

OPINION

Mitchell, J.

This was an action to recover the value of a mule alleged to have been fatally injured by reason of defendant's neglect to fence its road as required by law. As disclosed by the evidence the facts were these: The track of defendant's road was not fenced where it crosses plaintiff's land. One evening, as plaintiff was leading a span of mules to water, they, without fault on his part, escaped from him and ran upon the railroad, where one of them, while running along the track, broke his leg. The evidence is very meagre as to how the accident occurred, and leaves the matter largely to conjecture; but, so far as it throws any light upon the question, it tends to show that while the mule was running and jumping along the railroad track, it set its foot into a small hole in the soil between the ties, and in some unexplained way broke its leg. The hole was a small one, "about the size of a mule's foot," and from two to four inches in size "each way." There was no train along the track at the time of the injury. This was substantially all the evidence in the case.

Gen. St. 1878, c. 34, § 54, imposes upon all railroad companies the duty to build good and sufficient fences on each side of their roads. Section 55 of the same chapter provides that "all railroad companies shall be liable for domestic animals killed or injured by the negligence of such companies, and a failure to build and maintain * * * fences as above provided shall be deemed an act of negligence on the part of such companies." It has been urged that the liability of railroad companies under this statute, for injuries to domestic animals resulting from a neglect to build and maintain fences, extends only to those caused by collision with moving trains. Doubtless this class of injuries is much the most numerous, and is the one which the legislature had mainly in mind. But the terms of the statute are too general to warrant so restricted a construction. In our opinion it will apply to any injury which is the natural and proximate consequence of a neglect to build and maintain fences as required by law, and a railroad company which neglects to fence its road will be liable for all injuries to domestic animals which might naturally and reasonably be expected to result from such neglect, taking into consideration the character and condition of its road, and the purposes for which it is used. Hence, whenever an injury to a domestic animal can, according to well-understood legal rules, be said to be the legal and natural consequence of a failure to fence, then the railroad company will be liable, whatever may have been the particular circumstances under which the injury occurred.

But, on the other hand, it was neither the design nor the effect of the statute to make a railroad company liable absolutely for all injuries which would not have occurred had a fence been built, regardless of the fact whether such injury was the direct and natural, or only the remote and accidental, consequence of the absence of a fence, or whether the neglect to fence was merely the occasion and not the natural cause of the injury. The statute makes no such radical change in the general legal principles governing the law of negligence. The first part of section 55 is simply declaratory of the common law; the latter clause of the section simply adds one act or omission which shall be deemed negligence per se. But in determining the liability of a railroad company in a given case, the existing rules of law still apply. These are familiar and elementary. To entitle the plaintiff to recover, it is not enough that the defendant was negligent. Negligence is not actionable unless it be the proximate cause of the injury. Neither is it enough that, if a fence had been built, the mule would not have gotten upon the track, and hence would not have been injured. The omission to build the fence must have been the cause, and not the mere occasion, of the injury. The breach of duty on the part of the company was its neglect to build a fence. The damages for which it would be liable must be the natural and direct consequence of such neglect.

In strict logic it may be said that he who is the cause of loss should be answerable for all the losses which flow from his causation. But a strict application of any such logic would set society on edge, and fill the courts with useless and endless litigation. Hence, courts adopt the more practical rule of looking only to the proximate cause, and to the natural and proximate, or immediate and direct, damages resulting from an act of negligence. The rule is one rather difficult to formulate in general terms, and not always of easy application, much depending upon the particular facts of each case. But a long series of judicial...