Skinn v. Reutter

• Citation: 135 Mich. 57,97 N.W. 152
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan
• Decision Date: 17 November 1903
• Parties: SKINN et al. v. REUTTER et al.

97 N.W. 152

135 Mich. 57

SKINN et al. v. REUTTER et al.

Supreme Court of Michigan

November 17, 1903

Error to Circuit Court, Ingham County; Howard Wiest, Judge.

Action by Joseph Skinn and another against Gottlieb Reutter and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiffs bring error. Reversed.

Black &amp Dolan, for appellants.

L. B. &amp H. M. Gardner, for appellees.

CARPENTER J.

The declaration in this case alleges that defendants unlawfully sold certain hogs to a firm of live-stock dealers, knowing that said hogs were 'afflicted with a dangerous and infectious disease'; that they did not notify said firm of this fact; that said firm, in ignorance of the fact that said hogs were so infected, sold and delivered them to plaintiffs, who, without negligence on their part, placed them in a pen with their sound swine which contracted the disease and died. The defendants pleaded the general issue. The case came on for trial before a jury and, after the plaintiffs had introduced some testimony, and offered to prove that the intervening purchasers 'were without knowledge of any diseased condition of the hogs, and that there were no facts or circumstances that would have put them upon such notice,' the trial court directed a verdict for the defendants upon the ground that the plaintiffs had no cause of action. The question in this case relates solely to the correctness of this ruling.

It is the contention of the defendants' counsel, and it was the view of the trial court, that there could be no recovery because the act of a third person intervened between defendants' wrong and plaintiffs' injury. Is such intervention a sufficient defense? In considering this question it should be remembered that plaintiffs' claim is not based upon the ground of a breach of defendants' contract with the firm to whom they sold the hogs. It is based upon the theory that defendants committed a wrong in selling as sound hogs which they knew to be afflicted with a contagious disorder. Nor should we forget that the act of the intervening third person was in no sense wrongful, because, as already stated, plaintiffs offered to prove that the intervening purchasers 'were without knowledge of any diseased condition of the hogs, and that there were no facts or circumstances that would have put them upon notice.' We cannot, therefore, apply in this case the rule often stated in text-books and decisions, that one is not responsible for consequences resulting from the wrongful act of another person. Griffin v. Jackson Light & Power Co., 128 Mich. 653, 87 N.W. 888, 55 L. R. A. 318, 92 Am. St. Rep. 496. But it cannot be said that there is a general rule of law which exempts one from the consequences of a wrong merely because between the wrong and its consequences there intervenes an innocent human agency. It is true that many acts are wrong simply because they violate a duty to a particular person. If, for instance, the defendants in this suit had misrepresented to the purchasers the weight or breeding of these hogs, they would have incurred a liability only to those purchasers. See Necker v. Harvey, 49 Mich. 517, 14 N.W. 503. In such cases the wrongdoer is not liable for damages sustained by a third person; not because there intervenes a human agency between the wrong and the damages, but because the third person was in no sense wronged, or, for another and quite as correct reason, because the damages did not result from the wrong. On the other hand, there are wrongs naturally calculated, through the intervention of an innocent human agency, to injure third persons. In such cases both reason and authority hold the wrongdoer responsible for such injuries. The case of Craft v. Parker, Webb & Co., 96 Mich. 245, 55 N.W. 812, 21 L. R. A. 139, is such a case. There the defendants, who were engaged in the business of selling meats in the city of Detroit, sold plaintiff's brother a roll of spiced bacon. The purchaser took it to the plaintiff's house, where he boarded, and plaintiff's wife cooked it for breakfast. The bacon was in fact spoiled, and unfit for food, and made plaintiff sick. On the assumption that defendant knew that the meat was purchased for consumption, and was negligent in selling it, it was held that plaintiff had a cause of action. See, also, Brown v. Marshall, 47 Mich. 576, 11 N.W. 392, 41 Am. Rep. 728; Thomas v. Winchester, 6 N. Y. 397, 57 Am. Dec. 455; The Nitroglycerine Case, 15 Wall. 524, 21 L.Ed. 206; Griggs v. Fleckenstein, ...