Shannon v. Dow

• Decision Date: 11 December 1934
• Citation: 175 A. 766
• Parties: SHANNON v. DOW.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

175 A. 766

SHANNON

v. DOW.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 11, 1934.

On Motion from Superior Court, Somerset County.

Action of negligence by Fraser Shannon against George R. Dow. Plaintiff recovered a verdict, and the case was brought forward on defendant's general motion.

Motion overruled.

Argued before PATTANGALL, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, THAXTER, and HUDSON, JJ.

Fred H. Lancaster, of Lewiston, and L. H. Stitham, of Pittsfield, for plaintiff.

D. I. Gould, of Bangor, for defendant.

STURGIS, Justice.

Action of negligence to recover for injuries resulting from the accidental discharge of an improvised cannon. At the trial before a jury, the plaintiff recovered a verdict. The case comes forward on the defendant's general motion.

The defendant, George R. Dow, is the owner and proprietor of a public garage in East Corinth, Me. In the late evening of July 3, 1932, in preparation for the Fourth of July celebration of the next day, several pounds of black gunpowder and a small quantity of yellow powder were brought into the garage and put in cans. Later, a cannon made out of the drive shaft of an engine was produced, and at midnight and during the next hour it was repeatedly loaded in the garage, taken outside, and fired. The last time the cannon was loaded, it exploded, setting the garage on fire and injuring those who were in the building.

The plaintiff, Fraser Shannon, a resident of Pittsfield, Me., told the jury that on the day before this Fourth of July he brought his wife and children over to East Corinth to visit the family of one Alfred Jackson. They arrived in the forenoon, stayed into the evening and, deciding to remain overnight, he drove his automobile to the defendant's garage for storage. Finding the entrance blocked by a truck, he got out of his car, went to the rear of the garage in search of a toilet, spent a little time there finding a gauge he had dropped, returned to the front door, waited until the entrance was cleared, and drove his car into the garage, down the right side and to the back almost against a work bench along the wall. He says he then got out of his car and started towards the front entrance, but turned and, going back to his car, hid some of his tools, arranged other articles which had been left in the car, and, stepping off the running board, had started to walk around a puddle of water when there was an explosion which hurled him to the floor and rendered him unconscious. When he regained his senses, his left leg was useless and he was unable to rise. The rear of the garage was in flames. His outcries brought men to his assistance who helped him out and across the street where he was given first aid by the local physician. The plaintiff insists that he does not know what caused the explosion by which he was injured. He testifies that, as he went back to his car to hide his tools, he saw a man over in the left rear corner of the garage with what appeared to be a broomstick in his hand standing over something, but he was not acquainted with the man and did not see what he was doing.

The physician who attended the plaintiff states that a piece of metal was driven through the front of the plaintiff's left leg severing the muscles and shattering the bone. His pants were badly burned below the knees, the left leg being in shreds. The plaintiff was blackened in places over the face, neck, and body. His injuries were such that he was sent to the Eastern Maine General Hospital where his leg was kept in a cast twenty-seven clays, and then amputated above the knee. He stayed in the hospital twelve weeks. At the time of the trial, he had been fitted with and was using an artificial leg.

A fifteen year old boy named Jack Brown describes the explosion, its causes, and some of the incidents which led up to it. This witness apparently is wholly disinterested. He testifies that after he came down to the village that night a bag of black gunpowder was brought into the defendant's garage, taken out, rolled fine, and put in cans. About a pint of yellow powder was also brought in and left with the black powder in the back corner of the garage, both being used to load a so-called cannon which was fired from time to time during the night and before the accident. He says that after the celebration had been going on for a time he went across the street to a bowling alley, where one Morris Towne proposed that they load the cannon again and they returned to the garage. Towne went in first, poured powder into the cannon, and started to drive the wadding in with a piece of iron which he hit with a sledge hammer. This witness says that when he entered the garage there was no one in there except Towne and himself, but while the cannon was being loaded a man came in and went over back in the direction of the bench. The testimony of this boy, when carefully analyzed, shows that he does not know what the man did after he went to the bench. He thinks the man came back and stood a few seconds or minutes, but on further examination says, "I didn't notice what he did." This statement appears to be the full measure of his knowledge on this point. Being asked, "Then what happened?" the boy replied, "The cannon exploded," and states that the garage burst into flames and, not being seriously injured, he ran out the back door and to his home without stopping to see what happened to the other man. While he does not identify the man who came into the garage just before the cannon exploded, the coincidence of circumstances points to the plaintiff as the man the boy saw.

The young man, Morris Towne, who was driving the wadding into the cannon when it exploded, died from his injuries without making any statement as to what happened. The remaining witness for the plaintiff is his wife. She confirms his claim that he took his car down to the defendant's garage for storage a little while before midnight and says that he was with her up to that time during the...