Steenbock v. Omaha Country Club
| Decision Date | 22 September 1923 |
| Docket Number | 22167 |
| Citation | 195 N.W. 117,110 Neb. 794 |
| Parties | ADOLPH H. STEENBOCK, APPELLEE, v. OMAHA COUNTRY CLUB, APPELLANT |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the district court for Douglas county: L. B. DAY, JUDGE. Reversed, with directions.
REVERSED.
Kennedy Holland, De Lacy & McLaughlin, for appellant.
Jefferis Tunison & Wilson, contra.
Heard before MORRISSEY, C. J., LETTON, ROSE and DEAN, JJ., COLBY District Judge.
This action was brought by the plaintiff, a minor about 15 years of age, by his father and next friend, against the Omaha Country Club and Ludovic C. Crofoot for injuries sustained by plaintiff while employed as a caddy at said club.
The petition alleges that the injuries complained of were the result of an automobile being driven by the chauffeur of defendant Crofoot against a flagpole owned by the country club, which its employee, for the purpose of repair, had taken down and laid across a driveway on the grounds of said club. It is further alleged in the petition that the plaintiff was waiting for employment during his term as a caddy and sitting near the east end of the flagpole, and that the chauffeur of defendant Crofoot negligently propelled and directed an automobile along the driveway, failed to exercise ordinary care or to observe or discover such flagpole and negligently ran into the same; that such negligent act caused the car to strike the flagpole with great violence, inducing the slender part thereof to strike plaintiff in the back, thus producing the injuries complained of; that the negligent acts of the defendant Omaha Country Club in placing its flagpole across the driveway, and the negligent acts of defendant Crofoot, through his chauffeur, concurring, were the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries.
Before the trial of the case defendant Crofoot settled with plaintiff for the injuries complained of by the payment of the sum of $ 1,260.
The evidence upon the trial seemed to support the main facts alleged in the petition regarding the placing of the flagpole across the driveway by defendant Omaha Country Club and the failure of defendant Crofoot to exercise ordinary care in the driving of his machine or to observe or discover said flagpole, and that he carelessly and negligently ran into the same, and that the running into said pole by said car knocked the same against the back of plaintiff and thus produced the injuries complained of.
There were a number of defenses interposed by the defendant Omaha Country Club, but the controlling question at issue is whether the placing of the flagpole across the driveway of the country club or the knocking of the pole against plaintiff's back by the car of defendant Crofoot was the proximate cause of the injuries to plaintiff, and the decision of this question is of importance and will practically make a consideration of the other matters unnecessary.
To constitute proximate cause, under authority of the adjudicated cases, the injury must be the natural and probable result of the negligence, and be of such a character as an ordinarily prudent person could have known, or would or ought to have foreseen might probably occur as the result. It is not sufficient that the negligence charged does nothing more than furnish a condition by which the injury is made possible, and if such condition causes an injury by the subsequent independent act of a third person, the two acts are not concurrent and the existence of the condition is not the proximate cause of the injury. There may have been carelessness and negligence on the part of the country club in placing the flagpole across its driveway, but this, in itself, no matter how careless and negligent it might be, would not and could not alone cause the injury.
It is alleged in the petition and supported by the evidence that the carelessness and negligence of the chauffeur of defendant Crofoot caused the striking of the automobile against the flagpole, knocking the same against the back of plaintiff, thus producing the injuries complained of, and while the country club may have been careless and negligent in the placing of the flagpole across its driveway, this, in itself, without any other cause or condition, would not produce the injury. The pole, in itself, lying across the roadway would not produce any injury, but if negligently run into, as the plaintiff alleges happened in this case, an accident would result. From this it would appear that the pole simply furnished a condition, but that the real proximate cause of the accident was the carelessness and negligence of the chauffeur of the Crofoot car in running into the pole.
The failure of the country club to put up a notice or erect a barricade cannot be considered as the proximate cause of the accident. In order for the plaintiff to recover damages for its alleged negligence, the plaintiff must prove both the negligence of defendant country club and that such negligence was the proximate cause of the injury complained of. In this case it does not appear that the injury to plaintiff resulted from the negligence of the country club, if it was negligent in placing the flagpole across its driveway. This alleged negligence of the defendant country...
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