Shute v. Princeton Township

• Decision Date: 23 July 1894
• Docket Number: No. 8869.,8869.
• Citation: 58 Minn. 337
• Parties: A. B. SHUTE <I>et al.</I> <I>vs.</I> PRINCETON TOWNSHIP.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 337

58 Minn. 337

A. B. SHUTE et al.vs.

PRINCETON TOWNSHIP.

No. 8869.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Submitted on briefs June 11, 1894.

Affirmed July 23, 1894.

Appeal by plaintiffs, A. B. Shute and A. A. Shute, from an order of the District Court of Mille Lacs County, L. L. Baxter, J., made March 3, 1894, denying their motion for a new trial.

The supervisors of Princeton Township in Mille Lacs County made a contract August 27, 1889, with August Pinz by which he agreed for $40 to burn the brush and grade about forty rods of a new highway adjoining the farm of the plaintiffs. He hired one of the board to work for him by the day on the job. While thus at work as a servant of Pinz he set fire to some brush in the highway and burned it up. The job was completed about the middle of September. When they left, Pinz and his servant, the supervisor, both supposed the fire was completely extinguished. But plaintiffs gave evidence tending to show that it smouldered in the adjacent swampy ground until September 30, 1889, and then broke out in a wind and ran across their farm and burned all the buildings and all the grain, tools and household goods on the farm.

When plaintiffs' evidence was all in the defendant asked the court to dismiss the action on the ground that it appeared that Pinz was an independent contractor and the defendant not liable for his negligence or that of his servants. The court granted the motion. Plaintiffs excepted and afterwards moved for a new trial, but were denied and they appeal.

Bruckart & Brower, for appellants.

Chas. A. Dickey, and Warner, Richardson & Lawrence, for respondent.

COLLINS, J.

For the purposes of this opinion, it may be assumed that on the trial below it was clearly shown that, when letting the contract to Pinz for the repairing of the highway, the supervisors of defendant town required of the contractor that certain brush which had previously been cut and piled up in the way be destroyed by fire, and also that, through negligence, it was this fire which escaped and consumed plaintiffs' property. But, with this assumption, it does not follow that the town can be held liable in damages. The loss sustained by plaintiffs was not on account of the act required of Pinz by the supervisors, but on account of the careless and negligent manner in which the act was performed.

It was lawful for the town, through its supervisors, to obligate Pinz to remove and destroy the brush by fire, that the road might be made...