Reason v. Singer Sewing Mach. Co., 259

• Decision Date: 17 April 1963
• Docket Number: No. 259,259
• Parties: Mrs. Virginia G. REASON v. SINGER SEWING MACHINE COMPANY.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Page 397

130 S.E.2d 397

259 N.C. 264

Mrs. Virginia G. REASON v. SINGER SEWING MACHINE COMPANY.

No. 259

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

April 17, 1963

Teague, Johnson & Patterson, Ronald C. Dilthey, Raleigh, Carroll W. Weathers, Jr., Wilson, for appellant.

Lucas, Rand & Rose, Wilson, Dockery, Ruff, Perry, Bond & Cobb, Charlotte, for appellee.

DENNY, Chief Justice.

If it be conceded that the machine furnished by the defendant was defective and that the defendant knew or by the exercise of reasonable care such defect could or should have been ascertained, the question still remains whether or not such alleged negligence was the proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries.

Negligence, in order to be actionable, must be shown to have been the proximate cause or one of the proximate causes of the plaintiff's injuries. There must be some causal relationship between the breach of duty and the injury. Johnson v. Meyer's Co., 246 N.C. 310, 98 S.E.2d 315.

In Wall v. Trogdon, 249 N.C. 747, 107 S.E.2d 757, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant, Trogdon Flying Service, Inc., while engaged in dusting and spraying crops by the use of an airplane, flew said airplane over the plaintiffs' lakes, which were stocked with fish, while dispensing a 'poisonous rothane insecticide spray,' as a result of which the fish belonging to the plaintiffs were killed and the waters rendered unsafe for use in any way or any purpose by either man or animal. On appeal to this Court from a judgment as of nonsuit, we said: '* * * (T)here must be legal evidence of every material fact necessary to support a verdict, and the verdict 'must be grounded on a reasonable certainty as to probabilities arising from a fair consideration of the evidence, and not a mere guess, or on possibilities.' (Citations omitted)

'If the evidence fails to establish either one of the essential elements of actionable negligence, the judgment of nonsuit must be affirmed.

'In the light of these principles applied to the evidence in the case there is no causal connection between the death of the fish in the lakes and the operation of the aircraft.

'In the first place there is no evidence as to elements constituting the spray used in spraying the crops. If there were poison in the spray there is no evidence that it was poisonous to fish. If it were poisonous to fish there is no evidence that the fish died from the poison. Whatever the oily substance seen on the waters of one of the lakes was, there is no evidence as to what it was, or the source from which it came. The testimony of the expert fishery biologist is purely speculative, and founded on possibilities. Indeed the element of proximate cause is missing.'

In the case of Hanrahan v. Walgreen Co., 243 N.C. 268, 90 S.E.2d 392, the plaintiff alleged she had purchased from the defendant a hair rinse and had used it as directed; that each time she used it her scalp became irritated; that prior to its use she had never had any trouble with her scalp. After using the hair rinse the third time she consulted a physician who found that she had weeping dermatitis of her...