Schumaker v. St. Paul & D. R. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 April 1891
• Citation: 46 Minn. 39,48 N.W. 559
• Parties: SCHUMAKER v ST. PAUL & D. R. CO.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

46 Minn. 39

48 N.W. 559

SCHUMAKERvST. PAUL & D. R. CO.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 8, 1891.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. The general rule in actions in tort is that the damages recoverable are those resulting directly from the wrongful act, whether they could or could not have been foreseen or contemplated by the wrong-doer as the probable result of the act done.

2. The direct or proximate consequences of a wrongful act are those which occur without any intervening cause, and, where an efficient adequate cause for the injuries has been found, it must be considered as the true cause, unless another, not incident to it, but independent of it, is shown to have intervened.

3. The question as to what is the direct or proximate cause of an injury is ordinarily not one of science or of legal knowledge, but of fact, for a jury to determine, in view of the accompanying circumstances.

4. Where the injuries complained of were caused immediately by the act of the servant in walking from the point to which he had been transported and put at work by the master, to a place where he could obtain necessary and proper shelter and protection from the elements, the master cannot be relieved from liability, in case it appears that the servant's act in so walking was apparently rendered necessary by the master's negligent act, and was not, in itself, negligent.

Appeal from district court, Ramsey county; KELLY, Judge.

Wm. H. Bliss, for appellant.

Erwin & Wellington, for respondent.

COLLINS, J.

To plaintiff's complaint herein the defendant corporation interposed a demurrer, upon the ground that it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. Upon the argument of this appeal defendant contended that its negligence in the premises was insufficiently pleaded; that the injury complained of, provided the same could be said to have been the result of defendant's act, was not proximate, but was too remote a consequence to be chargeable to it; and, further, that from the allegations of the complaint it was manifest that plaintiff himself was guilty of contributory negligence. Very little need be said on any of these points, for none are well taken. The complaint contains much that is superfluous, but in respect to negligence it avers the defendant's duty to have been to furnish transportation to plaintiff, a car-repairer in its employ, from the wrecked caboose, which he had been sent out to repair by the foreman, back to St. Paul, when he had completed his work, and that it wrongfully, unlawfully, and negligently failed and omitted so to do, or to furnish plaintiff with transportation to any other place where shelter or food could be obtained, and that by reason of such negligent failure and omission plaintiff was compelled to and did walk to the village of White Bear, a distance of nine miles, in the night-time, in extremely cold and dangerous weather, that being the nearest point at which the necessary shelter and food could be had; that placing reliance upon defendant's performance of its duty towards plaintiff when he had completed his work, by furnishing transportation back to St. Paul from the place on its line of road where he had been taken to repair the caboose, plaintiff was wholly unprepared with means for properly sheltering or clothing himself. It was also averred that the facts and circumstances with reference to the location of the caboose, the inclemency of the weather, the distance to shelter or food, and that plaintiff, by reason of his reliance upon being transported back to St. Paul when through with his work, had not provided himself with proper clothing for such weather, were then well known to the defendant. The negligence of the defendant might have been specified with greater certainty, but from an inspection of the pleading it appears that defendant is charged with having unnecessarily and unreasonably placed its servant, the plaintiff, in serious danger, from which injury resulted, by carelessly and negligently omitting to perform a duty immediately connected with his work, on the performance of which he had a right to and did rely. With full knowledge of the situation as to weather and the locality, consequently of the danger to be apprehended, it neglected and abandoned the plaintiff under circumstances which he alleges resulted in personal injury to him. It had no more right to unnecessarily and unreasonably leave him in a dangerous place, to expose him to an unnecessary and unreasonable risk from the elements, by failing to furnish transportation from...