CHAPTER II

NEGLIGENT INTERFERENCE

SECTION I NEGLIGENCE AS A GROUND OF LIABILITY

WEAVER _v._ WARD IN THE KING’S BENCH, EASTER TERM, 1616. _Reported in Hobart, 134._

Weaver brought an action of trespass of assault and battery against Ward. The defendant pleaded that he was, amongst others, by the commandment of the lords of the council, a trained soldier in London, of the band of one Andrews, captain, and so was the plaintiff: and that they were skirmishing with their muskets charged with powder for their exercise _in re militari_ against another captain and his band; and as they were so skirmishing, the defendant, _casualiter et per infortunium et contra voluntatem suam_, in discharging his piece, did hurt and wound the plaintiff; which is the same, &c., _absque hoc_, that he was guilty _aliter sive alio modo_. And, upon demurrer by the plaintiff, judgment was given for him; for, though it were agreed that if men tilt or tourney in the presence of the king, or if two masters of defence playing their prizes kill one another, that this shall be no felony, or if a lunatic kill a man, or the like; because felony must be done _animo felonico_; yet, in trespass, which tends only to give damages according to hurt or loss, it is not so; and therefore, if a lunatic hurt a man, he shall be answerable in trespass,[36] and, therefore, no man shall be excused of a trespass (for this is the nature of an excuse, and not of a justification, _prout ei bene licuit_), except it may be judged utterly without his fault; as if a man by force take my hand and strike you, or if here the defendant had said that the plaintiff ran across his piece when it was discharging, or had set forth the case with the circumstances so as it had appeared to the court that it had been inevitable, and that the defendant had committed no negligence to give occasion to the hurt.[37]

BROWN _v._ KENDALL SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER TERM, 1850. _Reported in 6 Cushing, 292._

This was an action of trespass for assault and battery, originally commenced against George K. Kendall, the defendant, who died pending the suit, and his executrix was summoned in.

It appeared in evidence, on the trial, which was before Wells, C. J., in the Court of Common Pleas, that two dogs, belonging to the plaintiff and the defendant, respectively, were fighting in the presence of their masters; that the defendant took a stick about four feet long, and commenced beating the dogs in order to separate them; that the plaintiff was looking on, at the distance of about a rod, and that he advanced a step or two towards the dogs. In their struggle, the dogs approached the place where the plaintiff was standing. The defendant retreated backwards from before the dogs, striking them as he retreated; and as he approached the plaintiff, with his back towards him, in raising his stick over his shoulder, in order to strike the dogs, he accidentally hit the plaintiff in the eye, inflicting upon him a severe injury.

Whether it was necessary or proper for the defendant to interfere in the fight between the dogs; whether the interference, if called for was in a proper manner, and what degree of care was exercised by each party on the occasion; were the subject of controversy between the parties, upon all the evidence in the case, of which the foregoing is an outline.

The defendant requested the judge to instruct the jury, that “if both the plaintiff and defendant at the time of the blow were using ordinary care, or if at that time the defendant was using ordinary care and the plaintiff was not, or if at that time both plaintiff and defendant were not using ordinary care, then the plaintiff could not recover.”

The defendant further requested the judge to instruct the jury, that, “under the circumstances, if the plaintiff was using ordinary care and the defendant was not, the plaintiff could not recover, and that the burden of proof on all these propositions was on the plaintiff.”

The judge declined to give the instructions, as above requested, but left the case to the jury under the following instructions: “If the defendant, in beating the dogs, was doing a necessary act, or one which it was his duty under the circumstances of the case to do, and was doing it in a proper way; then he was not responsible in this action, provided he was using ordinary care at the time of the blow. If it was not a necessary act; if he was not in duty bound to attempt to part the dogs, but might with propriety interfere or not as he chose; the defendant was responsible for the consequences of the blow, unless it appeared that he was in the exercise of extraordinary care, so that the accident was inevitable, using the word inevitable not in a strict but a popular sense.”

“If, however, the plaintiff, when he met with the injury, was not in the exercise of ordinary care, he cannot recover, and this rule applies, whether the interference of the defendant in the fight of the dogs was necessary or not. If the jury believe, that it was the duty of the defendant to interfere, then the burden of proving negligence on the part of the defendant, and ordinary care on the part of the plaintiff, is on the plaintiff. If the jury believe, that the act of interference in the fight was unnecessary, then the burden of proving extraordinary care on the part of the defendant, or want of ordinary care on the part of the plaintiff, is on defendant.”

The jury under these instructions returned a verdict for the plaintiff; whereupon the defendant alleged exceptions.

SHAW, C. J. This is an action of trespass, _vi et armis_, brought by George Brown against George K. Kendall, for an assault and battery; and the original defendant having died pending the action, his executrix has been summoned in. The rule of the common law, by which this action would abate by the death of either party, is reversed in this Commonwealth by statute, which provides that actions of trespass for assault and battery shall survive. Rev. Sts. c. 93, § 7.

The facts set forth in the bill of exceptions preclude the supposition, that the blow, inflicted by the hand of the defendant upon the person of the plaintiff, was intentional. The whole case proceeds on the assumption, that the damage sustained by the plaintiff, from the stick held by the defendant, was inadvertent and unintentional; and the case involves the question how far, and under what qualifications, the party by whose unconscious act the damage was done is responsible for it. We use the term “unintentional” rather than involuntary, because in some of the cases, it is stated, that the act of holding and using a weapon or instrument, the movement of which is the immediate cause of hurt to another, is a voluntary act, although its particular effect in hitting and hurting another is not within the purpose or intention of the party doing the act.

It appears to us, that some of the confusion in the cases on this subject has grown out of the long-vexed question, under the rule of the common law, whether a party’s remedy, where he has one, should be sought in an action of the case, or of trespass. This is very distinguishable from the question, whether in a given case, any action will lie. The result of these cases is, that if the damage complained of is the immediate effect of the act of the defendant, trespass _vi et armis_ lies; if consequential only, and not immediate, case is the proper remedy. Leame _v._ Bray, 3 East, 593; Huggett _v._ Montgomery, 2 B. & P. N. R. 446, Day’s Ed., and notes.

In these discussions, it is frequently stated by judges, that when one receives injury from the direct act of another, trespass will lie. But we think this is said in reference to the question, whether trespass and not case will lie, assuming that the facts are such, that some action will lie. These _dicta_ are no authority, we think, for holding, that damage received by a direct act of force from another will be sufficient to maintain an action of trespass, whether the act was lawful or unlawful, and neither wilful, intentional, or careless. In the principal case cited, Leame _v._ Bray, the damage arose from the act of the defendant, in driving on the wrong side of the road, in a dark night, which was clearly negligent, if not unlawful. In the course of the argument of that case (p. 595), Lawrence, J., said: “There certainly are cases in the books, where, the injury being direct and immediate, trespass has been holden to lie, though the injury was not intentional.” The term “injury” implies something more than damage; but, independently of that consideration, the proposition may be true, because though the injury was unintentional, the act may have been unlawful or negligent, and the cases cited by him are perfectly consistent with that supposition. So the same learned judge in the same case says (p. 597), “No doubt trespass lies against one who drives a carriage against another, whether done wilfully or not.” But he immediately adds, “Suppose one who is driving a carriage is negligently and heedlessly looking about him, without attending to the road when persons are passing, and thereby runs over a child and kills him, is it not manslaughter? and if so, it must be trespass; for every manslaughter includes trespass;” showing what he understood by a case not wilful.

We think, as the result of all the authorities, the rule is correctly stated by Mr. Greenleaf, that the plaintiff must come prepared with evidence to show either that the _intention_ was unlawful, or that the defendant was _in fault_; for if the injury was unavoidable, and the conduct of the defendant was free from blame, he will not be liable. 2 Greenl. Ev. §§ 85–92. Wakeman _v._ Robinson, 1 Bing. 213. If, in the prosecution of a lawful act, a casualty purely accidental arises, no

## action can be supported for an injury arising therefrom. Davis _v._

Saunders, 2 Chit. R. 639; Com. Dig. Battery, A. (Day’s Ed.) and notes; Vincent _v._ Stinehour, 7 Vt. 62. In applying these rules to the present case, we can perceive no reason why the instructions asked for by the defendant ought not to have been given; to this effect, that if both plaintiff and defendant at the time of the blow were using ordinary care, or if at that time the defendant was using ordinary care, and the plaintiff was not, or if at that time, both the plaintiff and defendant were not using ordinary care, then the plaintiff could not recover.

In using this term, ordinary care, it may be proper to state, that what constitutes ordinary care will vary with the circumstances of cases. In general, it means that kind and degree of care, which prudent and cautious men would use, such as is required by the exigency of the case, and such as is necessary to guard against probable danger. A man, who should have occasion to discharge a gun, on an open and extensive marsh, or in a forest, would be required to use less circumspection and care, than if he were to do the same thing in an inhabited town, village, or city. To make an accident, or casualty, or, as the law sometimes states it, inevitable accident, it must be such an accident as the defendant could not have avoided by the use of the kind and degree of care necessary to the exigency, and in the circumstances in which he was placed.

We are not aware of any circumstances in this case, requiring a distinction between acts which it was lawful and proper to do, and acts of legal duty. There are cases, undoubtedly, in which officers are bound to act under process, for the legality of which they are not responsible, and perhaps some others in which this distinction would be important. We can have no doubt that the act of the defendant in attempting to part the fighting dogs, one of which was his own, and for the injurious acts of which he might be responsible, was a lawful and proper act, which he might do by proper and safe means. If, then, in doing this act, using due care and all proper precautions necessary to the exigency of the case, to avoid hurt to others, in raising his stick for that purpose, he accidentally hit the plaintiff in his eye, and wounded him, this was the result of pure accident, or was involuntary and unavoidable, and therefore the action would not lie. Of if the defendant was chargeable with some negligence, and if the plaintiff was also chargeable with negligence, we think the plaintiff cannot recover without showing that the damage was caused wholly by the act of the defendant, and that the plaintiff’s own negligence did not contribute as an efficient cause to produce it.

The court instructed the jury, that if it was not a necessary act, and the defendant was not in duty bound to part the dogs, but might with propriety interfere or not as he chose, the defendant was responsible for the consequences of the blow, unless it appeared that he was in the exercise of extraordinary care, so that the accident was inevitable, using the word not in a strict but a popular sense. This is to be taken in connection with the charge afterwards given, that if the jury believed, that the act of interference in the fight was unnecessary (that is, as before explained, not a duty incumbent on the defendant), then the burden of proving extraordinary care on the part of the defendant, or want of ordinary care on the part of plaintiff, was on the defendant.

The court are of opinion that these directions were not conformable to law. If the act of hitting the plaintiff was unintentional, on the part of the defendant, and done in the doing of a lawful act, then the defendant was not liable, unless it was done in the want of exercise of due care, adapted to the exigency of the case, and therefore such want of due care became part of the plaintiff’s case, and the burden of proof was on the plaintiff to establish it. 2 Greenl. Ev. § 85; Powers _v._ Russell, 13 Pick. 69, 76; Tourtellot _v._ Rosebrook, 11 Met. 460.

Perhaps the learned judge, by the use of the term extraordinary care, in the above charge, explained as it is by the context, may have intended nothing more than that increased degree of care and diligence, which the exigency of particular circumstances might require, and which men of ordinary care and prudence would use under like circumstances, to guard against danger. If such was the meaning of this part of the charge, then it does not differ from our views, as above explained. But we are of opinion, that the other part of the charge, that the burden of proof was on the defendant, was incorrect. Those facts which are essential to enable the plaintiff to recover, he takes the burden of proving. The evidence may be offered by the plaintiff or by the defendant; the question of due care, or want of care, may be essentially connected with the main facts, and arise from the same proof; but the effect of the rule, as to the burden of proof, is this, that when the proof is all in, and before the jury, from whatever side it comes, and whether directly proved, or inferred from circumstances, if it appears that the defendant was doing a lawful act, and unintentionally hit and hurt the plaintiff, then unless it also appears to the satisfaction of the jury, that the defendant is chargeable with some fault, negligence, carelessness, or want of prudence, the plaintiff fails to sustain the burden of proof, and is not entitled to recover.

_New trial ordered_[38]

STANLEY _v._ POWELL IN THE QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION, NOVEMBER 3, 1890. _Reported in [1891] 1 Queen’s Bench, 86._

DENMAN, J. This case was tried before me and a special jury at the last Maidstone Summer Assizes.[39]

In the statement of claim the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had _negligently and wrongfully and unskilfully_ fired his gun and wounded the plaintiff in his eye, and that the plaintiff, in consequence, had lost his sight and suffered other damage. The defendant denied the negligence alleged. After the evidence on both sides, which was conflicting, had been heard, I left the three following questions to the jury: 1. Was the plaintiff injured by a shot from defendant’s gun? 2. Was the defendant guilty of negligence in firing the charge to which that shot belonged as he did? 3. Damages.

The undisputed facts were, that on Nov. 29, 1888, the defendant and several others were pheasant shooting in a party, some being inside and some outside of a wood which the beaters were beating. The right of shooting was in one Greenwood, who was of the party. The plaintiff was employed by Greenwood to carry cartridges and the game which might be shot. Several beaters were driving the game along a plantation of saplings towards an open drive. The plaintiff stood just outside a gate which led into a field outside the plantation, at the end of the drive. The defendant was walking along in that field a few yards from the hedge which bounded the plantation. As he was walking along a pheasant rose inside the plantation; the defendant fired one barrel at this bird, and, according to the evidence for the defendant, struck it with his first shot. There was a considerable conflict of evidence as to details; but the jury must, I think, be taken to have adopted the version of the facts sworn to by the defendant’s witnesses. They swore that the bird, when struck by the first shot, began to lower and turn back towards the beaters, whereupon the defendant fired his second barrel and killed the bird, but that a shot, glancing from the bough of an oak which was in or close to the hedge, and, striking the plaintiff, must have caused the injury complained of. The oak in question, according to the defendant’s evidence, was partly between the defendant and the bird when the second barrel was fired, but it was not in a line with the plaintiff, but, on the contrary, so much out of that line, that the shot must have been diverted to a considerable extent from the direction in which the gun must have been pointed in order to hit the plaintiff. The distance between the plaintiff and the defendant, in a direct line, when the second barrel was fired, was about thirty yards. The case for the plaintiff was entirely different; but I think it must be held that the jury took the defendant’s account of the matter, for they found the second question left to them in the negative. Before summing up the case to the jury, I called the attention of the parties to the doctrine which seemed to have been laid down in some old cases—that, even in the absence of negligence, an action of trespass might lie; and it was agreed that I should leave the question of negligence to the jury, but that, if necessary, the pleadings were deemed to have been amended so as to raise any case or defence open upon the facts with liberty to the court to draw inferences of fact, and that the damages should be assessed contingently. The jury assessed them at £100. I left either party to move the court for judgment; but it was afterwards agreed that the case should be argued before myself on further consideration, and that I should give judgment, notwithstanding that I had left the parties to move the court, as though I had originally reserved it for further consideration before myself.

Having heard the arguments, I am of opinion that, by no amendment that could be made consistently with the finding of the jury could I properly give judgment for the plaintiff. It was contended on his behalf that this was a case in which an action of trespass would have lain before the Judicature Acts; and this contention was mainly founded on certain _dicta_ which, until considered with reference to those cases in which they are uttered, seem to support that contention; but no decision was quoted, nor do I think that any can be found which goes so far as to hold, that if A. is injured by a shot from a gun fired at a bird by B., an action of trespass will necessarily lie, even though B. is proved to have fired the gun without negligence and without intending to injure the plaintiff or to shoot in his direction.

The jury having found that there was no negligence on the part of the defendant, the most favorable way in which it is now possible to put the case for the plaintiff is to consider the action as brought for a trespass, and to consider that the defendant has put upon the record a defence denying negligence, and specifically alleging the facts, sworn to by his witnesses, which the jury must be considered to have found proved, and then to consider whether those facts, coupled with the absence of negligence established by the jury, amount to an excuse in law.

The earliest case relied upon by the plaintiff was one in the year-book 21 Hen. 7, 28 A., which is referred to by Grose, J., in the course of the argument in Leame _v._ Bray, 3 East, 593, to be mentioned presently, in these words: “There is a case put in the year-book, 21 Hen. 7, 28 A., that where one shot an arrow at a mark which glanced from it and struck another, it was holden to be trespass.” Returning to the case in the year-book, it appears that the passage in question was a mere _dictum_ of Rede, who (see 5 Foss’ Lives of the Judges, p. 230) was at the time (1506) either a judge of the King’s Bench or C. J. of the Common Pleas, which he became in October in that year, in a case of a very different kind from that in question, and it only amounts to a statement that an

## action of trespass may lie even where the act done by the defendant is

_unintentional_. The words relied on are, “_Mes ou on tire a les buts et blesse un home, coment que est incontre sa volonte, il sera dit un trespassor incontre son entent._” But in that very passage Rede makes observations which show that he has in his mind cases in which that which would be _prima facie_ a trespass may be excused. The next case in order of date relied upon for the plaintiff was Weaver _v._ Ward, decided in 1607. There is no doubt that that case contains _dicta_ which _per se_ would be in favor of the plaintiff, but it also contains the following summing up of the law applicable to cases of unintentional injury by acts which are _prima facie_ trespasses: “Therefore, no man shall be excused of a trespass ... except it may be judged utterly without his fault,” showing clearly that there may be such cases. That case, after all, only decided that where the plaintiff and defendant were skirmishing as soldiers of the train-band, and the one, “_casualiter, et per infortunium, et contra voluntatem suam_” (which must be translated “accidentally and involuntarily”) shot the other, an

## action of trespass would lie, _unless_ he could show that such

involuntary and accidental shooting was done under such circumstances as utterly to negative negligence. Such cases may easily be supposed, in which there could be no two opinions about the matter; but other cases may, as the present case did, involve considerable conflicts of evidence and opinion which until recently a jury only could dispose of. The case of Gibbons _v._ Pepper, 4 Mod. 405, decided in 1695, merely decided that a plea merely showing that an accident caused by a runaway horse was _inevitable_, was a bad plea in an action of trespass, because, if _inevitable_, that was a defence under the general issue. It was a mere decision on the pleading, and laid down nothing as regards the point raised in the present case. The concluding words of the judgment, which show clearly the _ratio decidendi_ of that case, are these: “He should have pleaded the general issue, for if the horse ran away against his will he would have been found _not guilty_, because in such a case it cannot be said with any color of reason to be a battery in the rider.” The more modern cases of Wakeman _v._ Robinson and Hall _v._ Fearnley, lay down the same rule as regards the pleading point, though the former case may also be relied upon as an authority by way of _dictum_ in favor of the plaintiff, and the latter may be fairly relied upon by the defendant; for Wightman, J., in his judgment explains Wakeman _v._ Robinson thus: “The act of the defendant” (viz., driving the cart at the very edge of a narrow pavement on which the plaintiff was walking, so as to knock the plaintiff down) “was _prima facie_ unjustifiable, and required an excuse to be shown. When the motion in this case was first made, I had in my recollection the case of Wakeman _v._ Robinson. It was there agreed that an _involuntary_ act might be a defence on the general issue. The decision indeed turned on a different point; but the general proposition is laid down. I think the _omission to plead_ the defence here deprived the defendant of the benefit of it, and entitled the plaintiff to recover.”

But in truth neither case decides whether, where an act such as discharging a gun is voluntary, but the result injurious without negligence, an action of trespass can nevertheless be supported as against a plea pleaded and proved, and which the jury find established, to the effect that there was no negligence on the part of the defendant.

The case of Underwood _v._ Hewson, 1 Str. 596, decided in 1724, was relied on for the plaintiff. The report is very short. “The defendant was uncocking a gun, and the plaintiff standing to see it, it went off and wounded him; and at the trial it was held that the plaintiff might maintain trespass—Strange _pro defendente_.” The marginal note in Nolan’s edition of 1795, not necessarily Strange’s own composition, is this: “Trespass lies for an accidental hurt;” and in that edition there is a reference to Buller’s N. P., p. 16. On referring to Buller, p. 16, where he is dealing with Weaver _v._ Ward, I find he writes as follows: “So (it is no battery) if one soldier hurt another in exercise; but if he plead it he must set forth the circumstances, so as to make it appear to the court that it was inevitable, and that he committed no negligence to give occasion to the hurt, for it is not not enough to say that he did it _casualiter, et per infortunium, et contra voluntatem suam_; for no man shall be excused of a trespass, unless it be justified entirely without his default: Weaver _v._ Ward; and, therefore, it has been holden that an action lay where the plaintiff standing by to see the defendant uncock his gun was accidentally wounded: Underwood _v._ Hewson.” On referring back to Weaver _v._ Ward, I can find nothing in the report to show that the court held, that in order to constitute a defence in the case of a trespass it is necessary to show that the act was _inevitable_. If _inevitable_, it would seem that there was a defence under the general issue; but a distinction is drawn between an act which is inevitable and an act which is excusable, and what Weaver _v._ Ward really lays down is that “no man shall be excused of a trespass except it may be judged utterly without his fault.”

Day _v._ Edwards, D. & E. 5 T. R. 648 (1794), merely decides that where a man negligently _drives_ a cart against the plaintiff’s carriage, the injury being committed by the _immediate_ act complained of, the remedy must be trespass, and not case.

But the case upon which most reliance was placed by the plaintiff’s counsel was Leame _v._ Bray, 3 East, 593. That was an action of trespass in which the plaintiff complained that the defendant with force and arms drove and struck a chaise which he was driving on the highway against the plaintiff’s curricle, which the plaintiff’s servant was driving, by means whereof the servant was thrown out, and the horses ran away, and the plaintiff, who jumped out to save his life, was injured. The facts stated in the report include a statement that “the accident happened in a dark night, owing to the defendant driving his carriage on the wrong side of the road, and the parties not being able to see each other; and that if the defendant had kept his right side there was ample room for the carriages to have passed without injury.” The report goes on to state: “But it did not appear that blame was imputable to the defendant in any _other_ respect as to the manner of his driving. It was therefore objected for the defendant, that the injury _having happened from negligence_ and not wilfully, the proper remedy was by an action on the case, and not of trespass _vi et armis_; and the plaintiff was thereupon nonsuited.” On the argument of the rule to set aside the verdict the whole discussion turned upon the question whether the injury was, as put by Lawrence, J., at p. 596 of the report, immediate from the defendant’s act, or consequential only from it, and in the result the nonsuit was set aside. But it clearly appears from the report that there was evidence upon which the jury might have found negligence, and indeed the defendant’s counsel assumed it in the very objection which prevailed with Lord Ellenborough when he nonsuited the plaintiff. There is nothing in any of the judgments to show that if in that case a plea had been pleaded denying any negligence, and the jury had found that the defendant was not guilty of any negligence, but (for instance) that the accident happened wholly through the darkness of the night making it impossible to distinguish one side of the road from the other and without negligence on either side, the court would have held that the defendant would have been liable either in trespass or in case.

All the cases to which I have referred were before the Court of Exchequer in 1875, in the case of Holmes _v._ Mather, and Bramwell, B., in giving judgment in that case, dealt with them thus: “As to the cases cited, most of them are really decisions on the form of action, whether case or trespass. The result of them is this, and it is intelligible enough: if the act that does an injury is an act of direct force _vi et armis_, trespass is the proper remedy (if there is any remedy), where the act is wrongful either as being wilful or as being the result of negligence. Where the act is not wrongful for either of these reasons, no action is maintainable, though trespass would be the proper form of

## action if it were wrongful. That is the effect of the decisions.”

This view of the older authorities is in accordance with a passage cited by Mr. Dickens from Bacon’s Abridgment, Trespass, I., p. 706, with a marginal reference to Weaver _v._ Ward. In Bacon the word “inevitable” does not find a place. “If the circumstance which is specially pleaded in an action of trespass do not make the act complained of lawful” (by which I understand justifiable even if purposely done to the extent of purposely inflicting the injury, as, for instance, in a case of self-defence) “and only make it excusable, it is proper to plead this circumstance in excuse; and it is in this case necessary for the defendant to show not only that the act complained of was accidental” (by which I understand, “that the injury was unintentional”), “but likewise that it was not owing to neglect or want of due caution.” In the present case the plaintiff sued in respect of an injury owing to the defendant’s negligence,—there was no pretence for saying that it was intentional so far as any injury to the plaintiff was concerned,—and the jury negatived such negligence. It was argued that nevertheless, inasmuch as the plaintiff was injured by a shot from the defendant’s gun, that was an injury owing to an act of force committed by the defendant, and therefore an action would lie. I am of opinion that this is not so, and that against any statement of claim which the plaintiff could suggest the defendant must succeed if he were to plead the facts sworn to by the witnesses for the defendant in this case, and the jury believing those facts, as they must now be taken by me to have done, found the verdict which they have found as regards negligence. In other words, I am of opinion that if the case is regarded as an action on the case for an injury by negligence the plaintiff has failed to establish that which is the very gist of such an action; if, on the other hand, it is turned into an action for trespass, and the defendant is (as he must be) supposed to have pleaded a plea denying negligence and establishing that the injury was accidental in the sense above explained, the verdict of the jury is equally fatal to the action. I am, therefore, of opinion that I am bound to give judgment for the defendant. As to costs, they must follow, unless the defendant foregoes his right.

_Judgment for the defendant._[40]

SULLIVAN _v._ OLD COLONY STREET RAILWAY SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT, MASSACHUSETTS, NOVEMBER 30, 1908. _Reported in 200 Massachusetts Reports, 303._

Tort. The first count in the declaration alleged that, while the plaintiff was a passenger on an electric car of the defendant, the car was derailed at Tiverton, owing to the defendant’s negligence, “whereby the plaintiff was jolted and in many ways injured externally and internally.”

At the trial, plaintiff testified substantially to the same effect as the allegations in the declaration. As to the derailment, he testified that it was violent and that he was much thrown about. The evidence for the defendant tended to show that there was practically no jar when the car left the rails at Tiverton.

At the close of the evidence plaintiff requested, among others, the following ruling:—

“1. Upon all the evidence the plaintiff is entitled to recover on the first count.”

The judge refused to so rule.

The judge instructed the jury, in part, as follows:—

“The only matters, then, of damages for you to consider are these: First, what was the effect upon the plaintiff of the jolts when the car was derailed? To what extent did they injure the plaintiff?”

Plaintiff excepted to the charge. Verdict for defendant.[41]

SHELDON, J. No question was made at the trial but that the defendant was liable for any injury done to the plaintiff by reason of its car having left the track. But if no injury was caused by this to the plaintiff, if he suffered no damage whatever from the defendant’s negligence, then he would not be entitled to recover. Although there has been negligence in the performance of a legal duty, yet it is only those who have suffered damage therefrom that may maintain an action therefor. Heaven _v._ Pender, 11 Q. B. D. 503, 507; Farrell _v._ Waterbury Horse Railroad, 60 Conn. 239, 246; Salmon _v._ Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, 19 Vroom, 5, 11; 2 Cooley on Torts (3d ed.), 791; Wharton on Negligence (2d ed.), sect. 3. In cases of negligence, there is no such invasion of rights as to entitle plaintiff to recover at least nominal damages, as in Hooten _v._ Barnard, 137 Mass. 36, and McAneany _v._ Jewett, 10 Allen, 151.[42] Accordingly, the first and second of the plaintiff’s requests for rulings could not have been given, and the rulings made were all that the plaintiff was entitled to.

_Exceptions overruled._[43]

HART _v._ ALLEN SUPREME COURT, PENNSYLVANIA, OCTOBER TERM, 1833. _Reported in 2 Watts, 114._

## Action on the case against owners of a vessel.[44] Plaintiff put in

evidence a bill of lading of chests of tea shipped on board defendant’s vessel; “to be delivered in good order, unavoidable accidents and the dangers of the river excepted....” Plaintiff also proved that the teas were delivered by defendants in a damaged state, owing to their having been wet. Defendants gave evidence that the boat, when on her passage up the river, was driven by a sudden squall of wind and snow sidewise, whereby the teas were wet and damaged; that she was well fitted for the voyage; that every exertion was made to save her; and that Samuel Johnston, the captain, was a man of experience. To rebut this the plaintiff gave evidence that Samuel Johnston was not an experienced boatman or pilot.

Judgment below for plaintiff. The original defendants brought error. One of the errors assigned was as follows:—

The court below erred in charging the jury, that although the accident in this case resulted from the act of God, and could not have been prevented by any human prudence or foresight; and although it would, in this respect, come within the exception that excuses the carrier in case of loss: still, if the crew of the boat was not sufficient, or if she was not under the control of a master or pilot sufficiently skilled to perform the duties corresponding to his station, the carrier cannot avail himself of the exception, nor excuse himself from responsibility to the owner, to the extent of the injury done to the goods. And also, in substance, that if the jury think that the boat was not fit for the voyage, or the master not competent, or the crew insufficient; they ought to find a verdict for the plaintiff, whatever might be their opinion as to the real cause of the upsetting of the boat.

GIBSON, C. J.: Had the judge said no more than that the carrier is bound to provide a carriage or vessel in all respects adequate to the purpose, with a conductor or crew of competent skill or ability, and that “failing in these particulars, though the loss be occasioned by the act of God, he shall not set up a providential calamity to protect himself against what _may_ have arisen from his own folly;” there would have been no room for an exception. But the cause was eventually put to the jury on a different principle: “though the accident resulted from the act of God,” it was said, “_and could not have been prevented by any human prudence or foresight_, and though it would in this respect otherwise have come within the exception that excuses the carrier in case of loss: still, if the crew of the office [?] were not sufficient, or if she were not under the control of a master or pilot sufficiently skilful to perform the duties correspondent to his station, the carrier cannot avail himself of the exception.” By this the jury were instructed, in accordance, as it was supposed, with the principle of Bell _v._ Reed and Beelor, 4 Binn. 127, that want of seaworthiness has the peculiar effect of casting every loss, from whatever cause, on the carrier, as a penalty, I presume, for his original delinquency, and not for its actual or supposed instrumentality in contributing to the disaster, which is admitted to have been produced, in this instance, by causes unconnected with the master or crew, and to have been of a nature which no human force or sagacity could control.

Does such a penalty necessarily result from the nature of the contract? A carrier is answerable for the consequences of negligence, not the abstract existence of it. Where the goods have arrived safe, no action lies against him for an intervening but inconsequential act of carelessness; nor can it be set up as a defence against payment of the freight; and for this plain reason, that the risk from it was all his own. Why, then, should it, in any other case, subject him to a loss which it did not contribute to produce, or give an advantage to one who was not prejudiced by it? It would require much to reconcile to any principle of policy or justice, a measure of responsibility which would cast the burthen of the loss on a carrier whose wagon had been snatched away by a whirlwind in crossing a bridge, merely because it had not been furnished with a proper cover or tilt to protect the goods from the weather. Yet the omission to provide such a cover would be gross negligence, but, like that imputed to the carrier in the case before us, such as could have had no imaginable effect on the event. A carrier is an insurer against all losses without regard to degrees of negligence in the production of them, except such as have been caused by an act of providence, or the common enemy: and why is he so? Undoubtedly to subserve the purposes, not of justice in the particular instance, but of policy and convenience: of policy, by removing from him all temptation to confederate with robbers or thieves—and of convenience, by relieving the owner of the goods from the necessity of proving actual negligence, which, the fact being peculiarly within the knowledge of the carrier or his servants, could seldom be done. Jones on Bail. 108, 109; 2 Kent, 59, 78. Such are the rule and the reason of it, and such is the exception. But we should enlarge the rule, or to speak more properly, narrow the exception far beyond the exigencies of policy or convenience, did we hold him an insurer against even the acts of providence, as a punishment for an abstract delinquency, where there was no room for the existence of a confederacy, or the operation of actual negligence; and to carry a responsibility, founded in no principle of natural equity beyond the requirements of necessity, would be gratuitous injustice. A delinquency which might have contributed to the disaster, such, for instance, as is imputable to the owner of a ship driven on a lee shore, for a defect in the rigging or sails, would undoubtedly be attended with different consequences; for as it would be impossible to ascertain the exact effect of the delinquency on the event, the loss would have to be borne by the delinquent on a very common principle, by which any one whose carelessness has increased the danger of injury from a sudden commotion of the elements, is chargeable with all the mischief that may ensue: as in Turberville _v._ Stamp, Skin. 681, where it was adjudged, that the negligent keeping of fire in a close would subject the party to all the consequences, though proximately produced by a sudden storm; and the same principle was held by this court in The Lehigh Bridge Company _v._ The Lehigh Navigation, 4 Rawle, 9. But it would be too much to require of the carrier to make good a loss from shipwreck, for having omitted to provide the ship with proper papers, which are a constituent part of seaworthiness, and the omission of them an undoubted negligence.

* * * * *

The first question, therefore, will be, whether the captain and crew of the boat had the degree of ability and skill thus indicated; and if it be found that they had not, then the second question will be, whether the want of it contributed in any degree to the actual disaster: but if either of these be found for the carrier, it will be decision [decisive?] of the cause. It seems, therefore, that ... the cause ought to be put, on these principles, to another jury.

_Judgment reversed, and a venire de novo awarded_.[45]

SECTION II INTERESTS SECURED

SPADE _v._ LYNN & BOSTON R. CO. SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT, MASSACHUSETTS, MAY 19, 1897. _Reported in 168 Massachusetts Reports, 285._

Tort, for personal injuries occasioned to the plaintiff by the alleged negligence of the defendant. The declaration contained three counts.

The third count[46] alleged that while the plaintiff was a passenger in the defendant’s car, and in the exercise of due care, “one of the defendant’s agents or servants, in attempting to remove from the said car a certain person claimed and alleged by said defendant’s agent to be noisy, turbulent, and unfit to remain as a passenger in said car, conducted himself with such carelessness, negligence, and with the use of such unnecessary force, that said agent and servant, acting thus negligently, created a disorder, disturbance, and quarrel in said car, and thereby frightened the plaintiff and subjected her to a severe nervous shock, by which nervous shock the plaintiff was physically prostrated and suffered, and has continued to suffer, great mental and physical pain and anguish, and has been put to great expense.”

The defendant’s answer was a general denial.

Trial in the Superior Court, before MASON, C. J.

The plaintiff testified, among other things, that the conductor in putting off an intoxicated man twitched him in such a way as to push another intoxicated man over on to the plaintiff. The evidence for the defendant tended to disprove plaintiff’s claim that either of the intoxicated persons came in contact with her, or assaulted her.

The defendant requested (_inter alia_) an instruction, that there was no evidence to warrant a verdict on the third count. This request was refused.

The judge instructed the jury as follows:—

“Now there is a third count to which attention must be called. If the jury should find that there was no bodily injury to the plaintiff direct from the acts of the conductor, that is, no person was thrown against the plaintiff, if that statement is not accurate, the plaintiff still contends that if the manner of the removal was such that it occasioned fright and nervous shock that resulted in bodily injury, that she is still entitled to recover for that bodily injury. And I have to say to you as matter of law, that if the wrongful acts of the conductor, on the occasion of removing the disorderly passenger, did occasion fright and nervous shock to the plaintiff, by reason of which she sustained bodily injury, that she can recover compensation for that injury.

“It is settled law in this State that a person cannot recover for mere fright, fear or mental distress occasioned by the negligence of another, which does not result in bodily injury.

* * * * *

“But when the fright or fear or nervous shock produces a bodily injury, then there may be recovery for that bodily injury, and for all the pain, mental or otherwise, which may arise out of that bodily injury. The brain and the nervous system are so closely connected with the mind, are the instruments by which the mind communicates with the body and operates upon it, that we sometimes deal with the nervous conditions as if they were mental conditions, and possibly the testimony has to some extent treated them as one. But for the purpose of the principle which I am now stating, a clear distinction exists between what is mental and what is nervous. The nervous system, the brain and the nerve fibres, are a part of the body, and injury to them is bodily injury. Now if by the wrongful acts of this defendant or its agents, there was a mental shock, fright, and it ended with that, there can be no recovery. But if that mental shock produced a bodily injury, a disturbance of the brain or nervous system which continued and caused subsequent suffering, there may be recovery for that bodily injury and all that follows from it.”

To the above instructions, the defendant excepted.

Verdict for plaintiff.

ALLEN, J. This case presents a question which has not heretofore been determined in this Commonwealth, and in respect to which the decisions elsewhere have not been uniform. It is this: whether in an action to recover damages for an injury sustained through the negligence of another, there can be a recovery for a bodily injury caused by mere fright and mental disturbance. The jury were instructed that a person cannot recover for mere fright, fear or mental distress occasioned by the negligence of another, which does not result in bodily injury,[47] but that when the fright or fear or nervous shock produces a bodily injury, there may be a recovery for that bodily injury, and for all the pain, mental or otherwise, which may arise out of that bodily injury.

In Canning _v._ Williamstown, 1 Cush. 451, it was held, in an action against a town to recover damages for an injury sustained by the plaintiff in consequence of a defective bridge, that he could not recover if he sustained no injury to his person, but merely incurred risk and peril which caused fright and mental suffering. In Warren _v._ Boston & Maine Railroad, 163 Mass. 484, the evidence tended to show that the defendant’s train struck the carriage of the plaintiff, thereby throwing him out upon the ground, and it was held to be a physical injury to the person to be thrown out of a wagon, or to be compelled to jump out, even although the harm consists mainly of nervous shock. It was not therefore a case of mere fright, and resulting nervous shock.

The case calls for a consideration of the real ground upon which the liability or non-liability of a defendant guilty of negligence in a case like the present depends. The exemption from liability for mere fright, terror, alarm, or anxiety does not rest on the assumption that these do not constitute an actual injury. They do in fact deprive one of enjoyment and of comfort, cause real suffering, and to a greater or less extent disqualify one for the time being from doing the duties of life. If these results flow from a wrongful or negligent act, a recovery therefor cannot be denied on the ground that the injury is fanciful and not real. Nor can it be maintained that these results may not be the direct and immediate consequence of the negligence. Danger excites alarm. Few people are wholly insensible to the emotions caused by imminent danger, though some are less affected than others.

It must also be admitted that a timid or sensitive person may suffer not only in mind, but also in body, from such a cause. Great emotion may and sometimes does produce physical effects. The action of the heart, the circulation of the blood, the temperature of the body, as well as the nerves and the appetite, may all be affected. A physical injury may be directly traceable to fright, and so may be caused by it. We cannot say, therefore, that such consequences may not flow proximately from unintentional negligence, and if compensation in damages may be recovered for a physical injury so caused, it is hard on principle to say why there should not also be a recovery for the mere mental suffering when not accompanied by any perceptible physical effects.

It would seem, therefore, that the real reason for refusing damages sustained from mere fright must be something different; and it probably rests on the ground that in practice it is impossible satisfactorily to administer any other rule. The law must be administered in the courts according to general rules. Courts will aim to make these rules as just as possible, bearing in mind that they are to be of general application. But as the law is a practical science, having to do with the affairs of life, any rule is unwise if in its general application it will not as a usual result serve the purposes of justice. A new rule cannot be made for each case, and there must therefore be a certain generality in rules of law, which in particular cases may fail to meet what would be desirable if the single case were alone to be considered.

Rules of law respecting the recovery of damages are framed with reference to the just rights of both parties; not merely what it might be right for an injured person to receive, to afford just compensation for his injury, but also what it is just to compel the other party to pay. One cannot always look to others to make compensation for injuries received. Many accidents occur, the consequences of which the sufferer must bear alone. And in determining the rules of law by which the right to recover compensation for unintended injury from others is to be governed, regard must chiefly be paid to such conditions as are usually found to exist. Not only the transportation of passengers and the running of trains, but the general conduct of business and of the ordinary affairs of life, must be done on the assumption that persons who are liable to be affected thereby are not peculiarly sensitive, and are of ordinary physical and mental strength. If, for example, a traveller is sick or infirm, delicate in health, specially nervous or emotional, liable to be upset by slight causes, and therefore requiring precautions which are not usual or practicable for travellers in general, notice should be given, so that, if reasonably practicable, arrangements may be made accordingly, and extra care be observed.[48] But, as a general rule, a carrier of passengers is not bound to anticipate or to guard against an injurious result which would only happen to a person of peculiar sensitiveness. This limitation of liability for injury of another description is intimated in Allsop _v._ Allsop, 5 H. & N. 534, 538, 539. One may be held bound to anticipate and guard against the probable consequences to ordinary people, but to carry the rule of damages further imposes an undue measure of responsibility upon those who are guilty only of unintentional negligence. The general rule limiting damages in such a case to the natural and probable consequences of the acts done is of wide application, and has often been expressed and applied. Lombard _v._ Lennox, 155 Mass. 70; White _v._ Dresser, 135 Mass. 150; Fillebrown _v._ Hoar, 124 Mass. 580; Derry _v._ Flitner, 118 Mass. 131; Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway _v._ Kellogg, 94 U. S. 469, 475; Wyman _v._ Leavitt, 71 Maine, 227; Ellis _v._ Cleveland, 55 Vt. 358; Phillips _v._ Dickerson, 85 Ill. 11; Hampton _v._ Jones, 58 Iowa, 317; Renner _v._ Canfield, 36 Minn. 90; Lynch _v._ Knight, 9 H. L. Cas. 577, 591, 595, 598; The Notting Hill, 9 P. D. 105; Hobbs _v._ London & Southwestern Railway, L. R. 10 Q. B. 111, 122.

The law of negligence in its special application to cases of accidents has received great development in recent years. The number of actions brought is very great. This should lead courts well to consider the grounds on which claims for compensation properly rest, and the necessary limitations of the right to recover. We remain satisfied with the rule that there can be no recovery for fright, terror, alarm, anxiety, or distress of mind, if these are unaccompanied by some physical injury; and if this rule is to stand, we think it should also be held that there can be no recovery for such physical injuries as may be caused solely by such mental disturbance, where there is no injury to the person from without. The logical vindication of this rule is, that it is unreasonable to hold persons who are merely negligent bound to anticipate and guard against fright and the consequences of fright; and that this would open a wide door for unjust claims, which could not successfully be met. These views are supported by the following decisions: Victorian Railways Commissioners _v._ Coultas, 13 App. Cas. 222; Mitchell _v._ Rochester Railway, 151 N. Y. 107; Ewing _v._ Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, 147 Penn. St. 40; Haile _v._ Texas & Pacific Railway, 60 Fed. Rep. 557.

In the following cases, a different view was taken: Bell _v._ Great Northern Railway, 26 L. R. (Ir.) 428; Purcell _v._ St. Paul City Railway, 48 Minn. 134; Fitzpatrick _v._ Great Western Railway, 12 U. C. Q. B. 645. See also Beven, Negligence, 77 _et seq._

It is hardly necessary to add that this decision does not reach those classes of actions where an intention to cause mental distress or to hurt the feelings is shown, or is reasonably to be inferred, as for example, in cases of seduction, slander, malicious prosecution or arrest, and some others. Nor do we include cases of acts done with gross carelessness or recklessness, showing utter indifference to such consequences, when they must have been in the actor’s mind. Lombard _v._ Lennox, and Fillebrown _v._ Hoar, already cited. Meagher _v._ Driscoll, 99 Mass. 281.

In the present case, no such considerations entered into the rulings or were presented by the facts. The entry therefore must be

_Exceptions sustained._[49]

DULIEU _v._ WHITE AND SONS KING’S BENCH DIVISION, JUNE 5, 1901. _Reported in [1901] 2 King’s Bench, 669._

Point of law raised by pleadings.[50]

The statement of claim was as follows:—

“1. The plaintiff is the wife of Arthur David Dulieu, who carries on the business of a licensed victualler at the Bonner Arms, Bonner Street, Bethnal Green, in the county of London.

“2. On July 20, 1900, the plaintiff was behind the bar of her husband’s said public-house, she being then pregnant, when the defendants by their servant so negligently drove a pair-horse van as to drive it into the said public-house.

“3. The defendants were also negligent in entrusting the driving of the said horses and van to their said servant, who had no knowledge or skill in driving.

“4. The plaintiff in consequence sustained a severe shock, and was and is seriously ill, and on September 29, 1900, gave premature birth to a child.

“5. In consequence of the shock sustained by the plaintiff the said child was born an idiot.

“The plaintiff claims damages in respect of the aforesaid matters.”

The statement of defence, after denying the allegations contained in the statement of claim proceeded:—

“3. The defendants submit as a matter of law that the damages sought to be recovered herein are too remote, and that the statement of claim on the face thereof discloses no cause of action.”

_Cur. adv. vult._

KENNEDY, J. In this case the only question for the judgment of the court is in the nature of a demurrer.

* * * * *

The head of damage alleged in paragraph 5 was rightly treated by the plaintiff’s counsel as untenable.

The defendant’s counsel summed up his contention against the legal validity of the plaintiff’s claim in the statement that no action for negligence will lie where there is no immediate physical injury resulting to the plaintiff.

* * * * *

This is an action on the case for negligence—that is to say, for a breach on the part of the defendant’s servant of the duty to use reasonable and proper care and skill in the management of the defendant’s van. In order to succeed, the plaintiff has to prove resulting damage to herself and “a natural and continuous sequence uninterruptedly connecting the breach of duty with the damage as cause and effect.” Shearman and Redfield, Negligence, cited in Beven, Negligence in Law, 2d ed. p. 7. In regard to the existence of the duty here, there can, I think, be no question. The driver of a van and horses in a highway owes a duty to use reasonable and proper care and skill so as not to injure either persons lawfully using the highway, or property adjoining the highway, or persons who, like the plaintiff are lawfully occupying that property. His legal duty towards all appears to me to be practically identical in character and in degree. I understood the plaintiff’s counsel to suggest that there might exist a higher degree of duty towards the plaintiff sitting in a house than would have existed had she been in the street. I am not satisfied that this is so. The wayfarer in the street, as it seems to me, has in law as much right of redress if he is injured in person or in property by the negligence of another as the man who is lawfully sitting on a side-wall or in an adjoining house. “The whole law of negligence assumes the principle of ‘Volenti non fit injuria’ not to be applicable,” for reasons which Sir Frederick Pollock points out (The Law of Torts, by Sir F. Pollock, 6th ed. pp. 166, 167), in a passage which follows the quotation which I have just made. The legal obligations of the driver of horses are the same, I think, towards the man indoors as to the man out of doors; the only question here is whether there is an actionable breach of those obligations if the man in either case is made ill in body by such negligent driving as does not break his ribs but shocks his nerves.

Before proceeding to consider the objections to the maintenance of such a claim as that of the present plaintiff, it is, I think, desirable for clearness’ sake to see exactly what are the facts which ought to be assumed for the purposes of the argument. We must assume in her favor all that can be assumed consistently with the allegations of the statement of claim. We must, therefore, take it as proved that the negligent driving of the defendants’ servant reasonably and naturally caused a nervous or mental shock to the plaintiff by her reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily hurt, and that the premature childbirth, with the physical pain and suffering which accompanied it, was a natural and a direct consequence of the shock. I may just say in passing that I use the words “nervous” and “mental” as interchangeable epithets on the authority of the judgment of the Privy Council in Victorian Railways Commissioners _v._ Coultas, 13 App. Cas. 222; but I venture to think “nervous” is probably the more correct epithet where terror operates through parts of the physical organism to produce bodily illness as in the present case. The use of the epithet “mental” requires caution, in view of the undoubted rule that merely mental pain unaccompanied by any injury to the person cannot sustain an action of this kind. Beven, Negligence in Law, 2d ed. p. 77.

Now, these being the assumed facts, what are the defendants’ arguments against the plaintiff’s right to recover damages in this action?

First of all, it is argued, fright caused by negligence is not in itself a cause of action—ergo, none of its consequences can give a cause of

## action. In Mitchell _v._ Rochester Ry. Co., (1896) 151 N. Y. 107, the

point is put thus: “That the result may be nervous disease, blindness, insanity, or even a miscarriage, in no way changes the principle. These results merely show the degree of fright or the extent of the damages. The right of action must still depend upon the question whether a recovery may be had for fright.” With all respect to the learned judges who have so held, I feel a difficulty in following this reasoning. No doubt damage is an essential element in a right of action for negligence. I cannot successfully sue him who has failed in his duty of using reasonable skill and care towards me unless I can prove some material and measurable damage. If his negligence has caused me neither injury to property nor physical mischief, but only an unpleasant emotion of more or less transient duration, an essential constituent of a right of action for negligence is lacking. “Fear,” as Sir Frederick Pollock has stated (The Law of Torts, 6th ed. p. 51), “taken alone falls short of being actual damage not because it is a remote or unlikely consequence, but because it can be proved and measured only by physical effects.” It may, I conceive, be truly said that, viewed in relation to an action for negligence, direct bodily impact is, without resulting damage, as insufficient a ground of legal claim as the infliction of fright. That fright—where physical injury is directly produced by it—cannot be a ground of action merely because of the absence of any accompanying impact appears to me to be a contention both unreasonable and contrary to the weight of authority.

[The learned judge then cited cases in which an action was held to lie, where the only physical impact did not accompany but was a consequence of the fright; also a case where there was nothing in the nature of impact and yet recovery was allowed.]

If impact be not necessary, and if, as must be assumed here, the fear is proved to have naturally and directly produced physical effects, so that the ill results of the negligence which caused the fear are as measurable in damages as the same results would be if they arose from an actual impact, why should not an action for those damages lie just as well as it lies where there has been an actual impact? It is not, however, to be taken that in my view every nervous shock occasioned by negligence and producing physical injury to the sufferer gives a cause of action. There is, I am inclined to think, at least one limitation. The shock, where it operates through the mind, must be a shock which arises from a reasonable fear of immediate personal injury to oneself. A. has, I conceive, no legal duty not to shock B.’s nerves by the exhibition of negligence towards C., or towards the property of B. or C. The limitation was applied by Wright and Bruce, JJ., in the unreported case of Smith _v._ Johnson & Co., referred to by Wright, J., at the close of his judgment in Wilkinson _v._ Downton, [1897] 2 Q. B. 57, at p. 61. In Smith _v._ Johnson & Co. (unreported), a man was killed by the defendant’s negligence in the sight of the plaintiff, and the plaintiff became ill, not from the shock produced by fear of harm to himself, but from the shock of seeing another person killed. The court held that this harm was too remote a consequence of the negligence.[51] I should myself, as I have already indicated, have been inclined to go a step further, and to hold upon the facts in Smith _v._ Johnson & Co. that, as the defendant neither intended to affect the plaintiff injuriously nor did anything which could reasonably or naturally be expected to affect him injuriously, there was no evidence of any breach of legal duty towards the plaintiff or in regard to him of that absence of care according to the circumstances which Willes, J., in Vaughan _v._ Taff Vale Ry. Co., (1860) 5 H. & N. 679, at p. 688, gave as a definition of negligence.

* * * * *

In order to illustrate my meaning in the concrete, I say that I should not be prepared in the present case to hold that the plaintiff was entitled to maintain this action if the nervous shock was produced, not by the fear of bodily injury to herself, but by horror or vexation arising from the sight of mischief being threatened or done either to some other person, or to her own or her husband’s property, by the intrusion of the defendants’ van and horses. The cause of the nervous shock is one of the things which the jury will have to determine at the trial.

It remains to consider the second and somewhat different form in which the defendants’ counsel put his objection to the right of the plaintiff to maintain this action. He contended that the damages are too remote, and relied much upon the decision of the Privy Council in Victorian Railways Commissioners _v._ Coultas, 13 App. Cas. 222.

* * * * *

The principal ground of their judgment is formulated in the following sentence: “Damages arising from mere sudden terror unaccompanied by any actual physical injury, but occasioning a nervous or mental shock, cannot under such circumstances, their Lordships think, be considered a consequence which, in the ordinary course of things, would flow from the negligence of the gate-keeper.”

* * * * *

Why is the accompaniment of physical injury essential? For my own part, I should not like to assume it to be scientifically true that a nervous shock which causes serious bodily illness is not actually accompanied by physical injury, although it may be impossible, or at least difficult, to detect the injury at the time in the living subject. I should not be surprised if the surgeon or the physiologist told us that nervous shock is or may be in itself an injurious affection of the physical organism. Let it be assumed, however, that the physical injury follows the shock, but that the jury are satisfied upon proper and sufficient medical evidence that it follows the shock as its direct and natural effect, is there any legal reason for saying that the damage is less proximate in the legal sense than damage which arises contemporaneously? “As well might it be said” (I am quoting from the judgment of Palles, C. B., 26 L. R. Ir. at p. 439) “that a death caused by poison is not to be attributed to the person who administered it because the mortal effect is not produced contemporaneously with its administration.” Remoteness as a legal ground for the exclusion of damage in an action of tort means, not severance in point of time, but the absence of direct and natural causal sequence—the inability to trace in regard to the damage the “propter hoc” in a necessary or natural descent from the wrongful act. As a matter of experience, I should say that the injury to health which forms the main ground of damages in actions of negligence, either in cases of railway accidents or in running-down cases, frequently is proved, not as a concomitant of the occurrence, but as one of the sequelæ.

* * * * *

[As to Mitchell _v._ Rochester Ry. Co., 151 N. Y. 107, cited by defendant.] Shortly, the facts there were that the plaintiff, whilst waiting for a tram-car, was nearly run over by the negligent management of the defendant’s servant of a car drawn by a pair of horses, and owing to terror so caused fainted, lost consciousness, and subsequently had a miscarriage and consequent illness.

* * * * *

It may be admitted that the plaintiff in this American case would not have suffered exactly as she did, and probably not to the same extent as she did, if she had not been pregnant at the time; and no doubt the driver of the defendant’s horses could not anticipate that she was in this condition. But what does that fact matter? If a man is negligently run over or otherwise negligently injured in his body, it is no answer to the sufferer’s claim for damages that he would have suffered less injury, or no injury at all, if he had not had an unusually thin skull or an unusually weak heart.

[After commenting on the opinion in Spade _v._ Lynn & Boston R. R., 168 Mass. 285.]

Naturally one is diffident of one’s opinion when one finds that it is not in accord with those which have been expressed by such judicial authorities as those to which I have just referred. But certainly, if, as is admitted, and I think justly admitted, by the Massachusetts judgment, a claim for damages for physical injuries naturally and directly resulting from nervous shock which is due to the negligence of another in causing fear of immediate bodily hurt is in principle not too remote to be recoverable in law, I should be sorry to adopt a rule which would bar all such claims on grounds of policy alone, and in order to prevent the possible success of unrighteous or groundless actions. Such a course involves the denial of redress in meritorious cases, and it necessarily implies a certain degree of distrust, which I do not share, in the capacity of legal tribunals to get at the truth in this class of claims. My experience gives me no reason to suppose that a jury would really have more difficulty in weighing the medical evidence as to the effects of nervous shock through fright, than in weighing the like evidence as to the effects of nervous shock through a railway collision or a carriage accident, where, as often happens, no palpable injury, or very slight palpable injury, has been occasioned at the time.

I have now, I think, dealt with the authorities and the arguments upon which the defendants rely, and I have done so at greater length than I should have wished to do but for the general interest of the points involved and the difficulties which the conflict of authorities undoubtedly present. In this conflict I prefer, as I have already indicated, the two decisions of the Irish courts. They seem to me to constitute strong and clear authorities for the plaintiff’s contention. It was suggested on the part of the defendants that the applicability of the judgment in Bell _v._ Great Northern Company of Ireland, 26 L. R. Ir. 428, is affected by the fact that the female in that action was a passenger on the defendant’s railway, and as such had contractual rights. It appears to me that in the circumstances this fact can make no practical difference whatever. In the Irish case there was no special contract, no notice to the railway company, when they accepted her as a passenger, that she was particularly delicate, or peculiarly nervous or liable to fright. The contractual duty existed, as it often does exist, concurrently with the duty apart from contract; but the one is in such circumstances practically co-extensive with the other in the rights which it gives and the corresponding liabilities which it imposes.

I hold that, if on the trial of this action the jury find the issues left to them as the jury found them in Bell _v._ Great Northern Railway Company of Ireland, 26 L. R. Ir. 428, after the direction of Andrews, J., which was approved by the Exchequer Division, the plaintiff will have made out a good cause of action.

PHILLIMORE, J.

* * * * *

I think there may be cases in which A. owes a duty to B. not to inflict a mental shock on him or her, and that in such a case, if A. does inflict such a shock upon B.—as by terrifying B.—and physical damage thereby ensues, B. may have an action for the physical damage, though the medium through which it has been inflicted is the mind.

* * * * *

I think there is some assistance to be got from the cases where fear of impending danger has induced a passenger to take means of escape which have in the result proved injurious to him, and where the carrier has been held liable for these injuries, as in Jones _v._ Boyce, 1 Stark. 493.

* * * * *

[The learned judge thought it possible that he might have come to the same conclusion as that arrived at in Victorian Railways Commissioners _v._ Coultas, though not for the reasons which have prominence in the judgment. He also thought that he should have come to the same decision as the Massachusetts court in Spade _v._ Lynn & Boston R. R.; but that he should not have expressed it in such broad and sweeping language.]

* * * * *

In the case before us the plaintiff, a pregnant woman, was in her house. It is said that she was not the tenant in possession and could not maintain trespass _quare clausum fregit_ if this had been a direct act of the defendant and not of his servant (as it was). This is true: her husband was in possession. But none the less it was her home, where she had a right, and on some occasions a duty, to be; and it seems to me that if the tenant himself could maintain an action, his wife or child could do likewise. It is averred that by reason of the careless driving of the defendants’ servant a pair-horse van came some way into the room, and so frightened her that serious physical consequences thereby befell her. If these averments be proved, I think that there was a breach of duty to her for which she can have damages. The difficulty in these cases is to my mind not one as to the remoteness of the damage, but as to the uncertainty of there being any duty. Once get the duty and the physical damage following on the breach of duty, and I hold that the fact of one link in the chain of causation being mental only makes no difference. The learned counsel for the plaintiff has put it that every link is physical in the narrow sense. That may be or may not be. For myself, it is unimportant.

* * * * *

_Judgment for plaintiff._[52]

WILKINSON _v._ DOWNTON QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION, MAY 8, 1897. _Law Reports, [1897] 2 Queen’s Bench, 57._

WRIGHT, J.[53] In this case the defendant, in the execution of what he seems to have regarded as a practical joke, represented to the plaintiff that he was charged by her husband with a message to her to the effect that her husband was smashed up in an accident, and was lying at The Elms at Leytonstone with both legs broken, and that she was to go at once in a cab with two pillows to fetch him home. All this was false. The effect of the statement on the plaintiff was a violent shock to her nervous system, producing vomiting and other more serious and permanent physical consequences at one time threatening her reason, and entailing weeks of suffering and incapacity to her as well as expense to her husband for medical attendance. These consequences were not in any way the result of previous ill-health or weakness of constitution; nor was there any evidence of predisposition to nervous shock or any other idiosyncrasy.

In addition to these matters of substance there is a small claim for 1_s._ 10½_d._ for the cost of railway fares of persons sent by the plaintiff to Leytonstone in obedience to the pretended message. As to this 1_s._ 10½_d._ expended in railway fares on the faith of the defendant’s statement, I think the case is clearly within the decision in Pasley _v._ Freeman, (1789) 3 T. R. 51. The statement was a misrepresentation intended to be acted on to the damage of the plaintiff.

The real question is as to the 100_l._, the greatest part of which is given as compensation for the female plaintiff’s illness and suffering. It was argued for her that she is entitled to recover this as being damage caused by fraud, and therefore within the doctrine established by Pasley _v._ Freeman, (1789) 3 T. R. 51, and Langridge _v._ Levy, (1837) 2 M. & W. 519. I am not sure that this would not be an extension of that doctrine, the real ground of which appears to be that a person who makes a false statement intended to be acted on must make good the damage naturally resulting from its being acted on. Here there is no injuria of that kind. I think, however, that the verdict may be supported upon another ground. The defendant has, as I assume for the moment, wilfully done an act calculated to cause physical harm to the plaintiff—that is to say, to infringe her legal right to personal safety, and has in fact thereby caused physical harm to her. That proposition without more appears to me to state a good cause of action, there being no justification alleged for the act. This wilful injuria is in law malicious, although no malicious purpose to cause the harm which was caused nor any motive of spite is imputed to the defendant.

It remains to consider whether the assumptions involved in the proposition are made out. One question is whether the defendant’s act was so plainly calculated to produce some effect of the kind which was produced that an intention to produce it ought to be imputed to the defendant, regard being had to the fact that the effect was produced on a person proved to be in an ordinary state of health and mind. I think that it was. It is difficult to imagine that such a statement, made suddenly and with apparent seriousness, could fail to produce grave effects under the circumstances upon any but an exceptionally indifferent person, and therefore an intention to produce such an effect must be imputed, and it is no answer in law to say that more harm was done than was anticipated, for that is commonly the case with all wrongs. The other question is whether the effect was, to use the ordinary phrase, too remote to be in law regarded as a consequence for which the defendant is answerable. Apart from authority, I should give the same answer and on the same ground as the last question, and say that it was not too remote. Whether, as the majority of the House of Lords thought in Lynch _v._ Knight, (1861) 9. H. L. C. 577, at pp. 592, 596, the criterion is in asking what would be the natural effect on reasonable persons, or whether, as Lord Wensleydale thought (9 H. L. C. 587, at p. 600), the possible infirmities of human nature ought to be recognized, it seems to me that the connection between the cause and the effect is sufficiently close and complete. It is, however, necessary to consider two authorities which are supposed to have laid down that illness through mental shock is a too remote or unnatural consequence of an injuria to entitle the plaintiff to recover in a case where damage is a necessary part of the cause of action. One is the case of Victorian Railways Commissioners _v._ Coultas, 13 App. Cas. 222, where it was held in the Privy Council that illness which was the effect of shock caused by fright was too remote a consequence of a negligent act which caused the fright, there being no physical harm immediately caused. That decision was treated in the Court of Appeal in Pugh _v._ London, Brighton and South Coast Ry. Co., [1896] 2 Q. B. 248, as open to question. It is inconsistent with a decision in the Court of Appeal in Ireland: Bell _v._ Great Northern Ry. Co. of Ireland, (1890) 26 L. R. Ir. 428, where the Irish Exchequer Division refused to follow it; and it has been disapproved in the Supreme Court of New York; see Pollock on Torts, 4th ed. p. 47 (_n_). Nor is it altogether in point, for there was not in that case any element of wilful wrong; nor perhaps was the illness so direct and natural a consequence of the defendant’s conduct as in this case. On these grounds it seems to me that the case of Victorian Railways Commissioners _v._ Coultas, 13 App. Cas. 222, is not an authority on which this case ought to be decided.

A more serious difficulty is the decision in Allsop _v._ Allsop, 5 H. & N. 534, which was approved by the House of Lords in Lynch _v._ Knight, 9 H. L. C. 577. In that case it was held by Pollock, C. B., Martin, Bramwell, and Wilde, BB., that illness caused by a slanderous imputation of unchastity in the case of a married woman did not constitute such special damage as would sustain an action for such a slander. That case, however, appears to have been decided on the ground that in all the innumerable actions for slander there were no precedents for alleging illness to be sufficient special damage, and that it would be of evil consequence to treat it as sufficient, because such a rule might lead to an infinity of trumpery or groundless actions. Neither of these reasons is applicable to the present case. Nor could such a rule be adopted as of general application without results which it would be difficult or impossible to defend. Suppose that a person is in a precarious and dangerous condition, and another person tells him that his physician has said that he has but a day to live. In such a case, if death ensued from the shock caused by the false statement, I cannot doubt that at this day the case might be one of criminal homicide, or that if a serious aggravation of illness ensued damages might be recovered. I think, however, that it must be admitted that the present case is without precedent. Some English decisions—such as Jones _v._ Boyce, (1816) 1 Stark. 493; Wilkins _v._ Day, (1883) 12 Q. B. D. 110; Harris _v._ Mobbs, (1878) 3 Ex. D. 268—are cited in Beven on Negligence as inconsistent with the decision in Victorian Railways Commissioners _v._ Coultas, 13 App. Cas. 222. But I think that those cases are to be explained on a different ground, namely, that the damage which immediately resulted from the act of the passenger or of the horse was really the result not of that act, but of a fright which rendered that act involuntary, and which therefore ought to be regarded as itself the direct and immediate cause of the damage. In Smith _v._ Johnson & Co. (unreported), decided in January last, Bruce, J., and I held that where a man was killed in the sight of the plaintiff by the defendant’s negligence, and the plaintiff became ill, not from the shock from fear of harm to himself, but from the shock of seeing another person killed, this harm was too remote a consequence of the negligence. But that was a very different case from the present.

There must be judgment for the plaintiff for 100_l._ 1_s._ 10½.

_Judgment for plaintiff._[54]

YATES _v._ SOUTH KIRKBY COLLIERIES IN THE COURT OF APPEAL, JULY 6, 1910. _Reported in [1910] 2 King’s Bench, 538._

Appeal against the award of the judge of the county court of Pontefract sitting as arbitrator under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1906.

The question raised by this appeal was whether a nervous shock received by a workman in the course of his employment was an “accident” which entitled him to compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1906. The facts as found by the county court judge were as follows:—

In October, 1909, the applicant,—a collier, forty-six years of age, who had been engaged in coal mining all his life, and for twenty-seven years had been working at the face of the coal in the pit belonging to the respondents,—while working as usual, heard a shout for help from the next working place. He ran around his loose end at once and found a fellow collier lying full length on the ground, having been knocked down by a fallen timber prop and some coal; he was bleeding all over his head and from his ears and eyes. The applicant picked him up in his arms and, with assistance, carried him away; he was not dead at the time, but died in a quarter of an hour. The effect on the applicant was such that he sustained a nervous shock, which incapacitated him from working at the coal face; he returned to his work on the Saturday, and at the order of the under-manager on the Monday following, but on neither occasion was he able to do work, and after describing to the under-manager and the Government inspector on the Monday the details of what happened on the Saturday he left the pit; he then consulted his doctor and has been under his care since. In November he tried again to work, and went to his old place, but though he stayed the shift he was unable to work, and his brother, who was his mate, did it for him. In January, 1910, he asked the under-manager for a by-work job, but the under-manager would not give him one, and he had not worked since.

Proceedings for compensation having been taken, the county court judge found as a fact that there was a genuine incapacity to work which was due to the nervous shock which he sustained in October, 1909, when it clearly was his duty to his employers to go to the assistance of the injured collier who shouted for help from the next working place, and that his doing so arose both “in course of” and “out of” his employment. The learned county court judge accordingly awarded the applicant compensation at 19_s._ a week to the date of the award, and 10_s._ a week till further order.

The respondents appealed.[55]

FARWELL, L. J. I am of the same opinion. It is rightly conceded that it was part of the man’s duty to go to the assistance of his fellow workman. Therefore there is no question that the events arose “out of and in the course of the employment.” The learned county court judge has found as a fact that there was a genuine incapacity to work, which was due to the nervous shock which the applicant sustained in October last. In my opinion nervous shock due to accident which causes personal incapacity to work is as much “personal injury by accident” as a broken leg, for the reasons already expressed by this court in the case of Eaves _v._ Blaenclydach Colliery Co., [1909] 2 K. B. 73. In truth I find it difficult, when the medical evidence is that as a fact a workman is suffering from a known complaint arising from nervous shock, to draw any distinction between that case and the case of a broken limb. I see no distinction for this purpose between the case of the guard who is not in fact physically injured by an accident to his train, but who, after assisting to carry away the wounded and dead, breaks down from nervous shock, and the case of the guard who in similar circumstances stumbles over some of the débris and breaks his leg.[56] The difficulty is to prove the facts so as to avoid the risk of malingering, but when the facts have been proved, the injury causing incapacity to work arises from the accident in the one case just as much as in the other. I am, therefore, of opinion that the judgment of the learned county court judge must be affirmed.

KENNEDY, L. J. I am of the same opinion. It is beyond question that the incapacity of the applicant has arisen in the course of and out of the employment; and when you have a finding of fact by the learned county court judge that there has been a nervous shock, and that that nervous shock has produced a genuine condition of neurasthenia, I think myself the recent authorities show that this judgment ought to be supported. One knows perfectly well that neurasthenia, although there may be no outward sign if you merely look at the person, is treated, and successfully treated in some cases at any rate, by a treatment of the body. Directly you have that which requires treatment of the body, it means that a portion of that body (visible or invisible does not matter) is in a state of ill-health, and, if the condition of neurasthenia produces incapacity to work which has been brought about by something in the nature of an accident which arose “out of and in the course of the employment,” you have a case of “personal injury by accident” which is within the Act.

_Appeal dismissed._

SECTION III THE STANDARD OF CARE

VAUGHAN _v._ MENLOVE IN THE COMMON PLEAS, JANUARY 23, 1837. _Reported in 3 Bingham’s New Cases, 468._

The declaration alleged, in substance, that plaintiff was the owner of two cottages; that defendant owned land near to the said cottages; that defendant had a rick or stack of hay near the boundary of his land which was liable and likely to ignite, and thereby was dangerous to the plaintiff’s cottages; that the defendant, well knowing the premises, wrongfully and negligently kept and continued the rick in the aforesaid dangerous condition; that the rick did ignite, and that plaintiff’s cottages were burned by fire communicated from the rick or from certain buildings of defendant’s which were set on fire by flames from the rick.

Defendant pleaded the general issue; and also several special pleas, denying negligence.

At the trial it appeared that the rick in question had been made by the defendant near the boundary of his own premises; that the hay was in such a state when put together, as to give rise to discussions on the probability of fire; that though there were conflicting opinions on the subject, yet during a period of five weeks the defendant was repeatedly warned of his peril; that his stock was insured; and that upon one occasion, being advised to take the rick down to avoid all danger, he said “he would chance it.” He made an aperture or chimney through the rick; but in spite, or perhaps in consequence of this precaution, the rick at length burst into flames from the spontaneous heating of its materials; the flames communicated to the defendant’s barn and stables, and thence to the plaintiff’s cottages, which were entirely destroyed.

Patteson, J., before whom the cause was tried, told the jury that the question for them to consider was, whether the fire had been occasioned by gross negligence on the part of the defendant; adding, that he was bound to proceed with such reasonable caution as a prudent man would have exercised under such circumstances.

A verdict having been found for the plaintiff, a rule nisi for a new trial was obtained, on the ground that the jury should have been directed to consider, not whether the defendant had been guilty of a gross negligence with reference to the standard of ordinary prudence, a standard too uncertain to afford any criterion, but whether he had acted _bona fide_ to the best of his judgment; if he had, he ought not to be responsible for the misfortune of not possessing the highest order of intelligence. The action under such circumstances was of the first impression.[57]

_Talfourd_, Serjt., and _Whately_, showed cause.

The pleas having expressly raised issues on the negligence of the defendant, the learned judge could not do otherwise than leave that question to the jury. The declaration alleges that the defendant knew of the dangerous state of the rick, and yet negligently and improperly allowed it to stand. The plea of not guilty, therefore, puts in issue the scienter, it being of the substance of the issue: Thomas _v._ Morgan, 2 Cr. M. & R. 496. And the action, though new _in specie_, is founded on a principle fully established, that a man must so use his own property as not to injure that of others. On the same circuit a defendant was sued a few years ago for burning weeds so near the extremity of his own land as to set fire to and destroy his neighbors’ wood. The plaintiff recovered damages, and no motion was made to set aside the verdict. Then, there were no means of estimating the defendant’s negligence, except by taking as a standard the conduct of a man of ordinary prudence: that has been the rule always laid down, and there is no other that would not be open to much greater uncertainties.

_R. V. Richards_, in support of the rule.

First, there was no duty imposed on the defendant, as there is on carriers or other bailees, under an implied contract, to be responsible for the exercise of any given degree of prudence: the defendant had a right to place his stack as near to the extremity of his own land as he pleased, Wyatt _v._ Harrison, 3 B. & Adol. 871: under that right, and subject to no contract, he can only be called on to act _bona fide_ to the best of his judgment; if he has done that, it is a contradiction in terms, to inquire whether or not he has been guilty of gross negligence. At all events what would have been gross negligence ought to be estimated by the faculties of the individual, and not by those of other men. The measure of prudence varies so with the varying faculties of men, that it is impossible to say what is gross negligence with reference to the standard of what is called ordinary prudence. In Crook _v._ Jadis, 5 B. & Adol. 910, Patteson, J., says, “I never could understand what is meant by parties taking a bill under circumstances which ought to have excited the suspicion of a prudent man;” and Taunton, J., “I cannot estimate the degree of care which a prudent man should take.”...

TINDAL, C. J. I agree that this is a case _primæ impressionis_; but I feel no difficulty in applying to it the principles of law as laid down in other cases of a similar kind. Undoubtedly this is not a case of contract, such as a bailment or the like, where the bailee is responsible in consequence of the remuneration he is to receive: but there is a rule of law which says you must so enjoy your own property as not to injure that of another; and according to that rule the defendant is liable for the consequence of his own neglect: and though the defendant did not himself light the fire, yet mediately he is as much the cause of it as if he had himself put a candle to the rick; for it is well known that hay will ferment and take fire if it be not carefully stacked. It has been decided that if an occupier burns weeds so near the boundary of his own land that damage ensues to the property of his neighbor, he is liable to an action for the amount of injury done, unless the accident were occasioned by a sudden blast which he could not foresee. Turberville _v._ Stamp, 1 Salk. 13. But put the case of a chemist making experiments with ingredients, singly innocent, but when combined liable to ignite; if he leaves them together, and injury is thereby occasioned to the property of his neighbor, can any one doubt that an action on the case would lie?

It is contended, however, that the learned judge was wrong in leaving this to the jury as a case of gross negligence, and that the question of negligence was so mixed up with reference to what would be the conduct of a man of ordinary prudence that the jury might have thought the latter the rule by which they were to decide; that such a rule would be too uncertain to act upon; and that the question ought to have been whether the defendant had acted honestly and _bona fide_ to the best of his own judgment. That, however, would leave so vague a line as to afford no rule at all, the degree of judgment belonging to each individual being infinitely various: and though it has been urged that the care which a prudent man would take, is not an intelligible proposition as a rule of law, yet such has always been the rule adopted in cases of bailment, as laid down in Coggs _v._ Bernard, 2 Ld. Raym. 909. Though in some cases a greater degree of care is exacted than in others, yet in “the second sort of bailment, viz., _commodatum_ or lending gratis, the borrower is bound to the strictest care and diligence to keep the goods so as to restore them back again to the lender; because the bailee has a benefit by the use of them, so as if the bailee be guilty of the least neglect he will be answerable; as if a man should lend another a horse to go westward, or for a month; if the bailee put this horse in his stable, and he were stolen from thence, the bailee shall not be answerable for him; but if he or his servant leave the house or stable doors open, and the thieves take the opportunity of that, and steal the horse, he will be chargeable, because the neglect gave the thieves the occasion to steal the horse.” The care taken by a prudent man has always been the rule laid down; and as to the supposed difficulty of applying it, a jury has always been able to say, whether, taking that rule as their guide, there has been negligence on the occasion in question.

Instead, therefore, of saying that the liability for negligence should be co-extensive with the judgment of each individual, which would be as variable as the length of the foot of each individual, we ought rather to adhere to the rule, which requires in all cases a regard to caution such as a man of ordinary prudence would observe.[58] That was in substance the criterion presented to the jury in this case, and therefore the present rule must be discharged.

[Concurring opinions were delivered by PARK, and VAUGHAN, JJ. GASELEE, J. concurred in the result.]

_Rule discharged._

BLYTH _v._ BIRMINGHAM WATERWORKS CO. IN THE EXCHEQUER, FEBRUARY 6, 1856. _Reported in 11 Exchequer, 781._

This was an appeal by the defendants against the decision of the judge of the County Court of Birmingham. The case was tried before a jury, and a verdict found for the plaintiff for the amount claimed by the

## particulars. The particulars of the claim alleged, that the plaintiff

sought to recover for damage sustained by the plaintiff by reason of the negligence of the defendants in not keeping their water-pipes and the apparatus connected therewith in proper order.

The case stated that the defendants were incorporated by stat. 7 Geo. IV., c. cix., for the purpose of supplying Birmingham with water.

By the 84th section of their Act it was enacted, that the company should, upon the laying down of any main-pipe or other pipe in any street, fix, at the time of laying down such pipe, a proper and sufficient fire-plug in each such street, and should deliver the key or keys of such fire-plug to the persons having the care of the engine-house in or near to the said street, and cause another key to be hung up in the watch-house in or near to the said street. By sec. 87, pipes were to be eighteen inches beneath the surface of the soil. By the 89th section, the mains were at all times to be kept charged with water. The defendants derived no profit from the maintenance of the plugs distinct from the general profits of the whole business, but such maintenance was one of the conditions under which they were permitted to exercise the privileges given by the Act. The main-pipe opposite the house of the plaintiff was more than eighteen inches below the surface. The fire-plug was constructed according to the best known system, and the materials of it were at the time of the accident sound and in good order. The apparatus connected with the fire-plug was as follows:—

The lower part of a wooden plug was inserted in a neck, which projected above and formed part of the main. About the neck there was a bed of brickwork puddled in with clay. The plug was also enclosed in a cast iron tube, which was placed upon and fixed to the brickwork. The tube was closed at the top by a movable iron stopper having a hole in it for the insertion of the key, by which the plug was loosened when occasion required it.

The plug did not fit tight to the tube, but room was left for it to move freely. This space was necessarily left for the purpose of easily and quickly removing the wooden plug to allow the water to flow. On the removal of the wooden plug the pressure upon the main forced the water up through the neck and cap to the surface of the street.

On the 24th of February, a large quantity of water, escaping from the neck of the main, forced its way through the ground into the plaintiff’s house. The apparatus had been laid down twenty-five years, and had worked well during that time. The defendants’ engineer stated, that the water might have forced its way through the brickwork round the neck of the main, and that the accident might have been caused by the frost, inasmuch as the expansion of the water would force up the plug out of the neck, and the stopper being incrusted with ice would not suffer the plug to ascend. One of the severest frosts on record set in on the 15th of January, 1855, and continued until after the accident in question. An incrustation of ice and snow had gathered about the stopper, and in the street all round, and also for some inches between the stopper and the plug. The ice had been observed on the surface of the ground for a considerable time before the accident. A short time after the accident, the company’s turncock removed the ice from the stopper, took out the plug, and replaced it.

The judge left it to the jury to consider whether the company had used proper care to prevent the accident. He thought, that, if the defendants had taken out the ice adhering to the plug, the accident would not have happened, and left it to the jury to say whether they ought to have removed the ice. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for the sum claimed.

_Field_, for the appellant. There was no negligence on the part of the defendants. The plug was pushed out by the frost, which was one of the severest ever known.

The Court then called on

_Kennedy_, for the respondent. The company omitted to take sufficient precautions. The fire-plug is placed in the neck of the main. In ordinary cases the plug rises and lets the water out; but here there was an incrustation round the stopper, which prevented the escape of the water. This might have been easily removed. It will be found, from the result of the cases, that the company were bound to take every possible precaution. The fact of premises being fired by sparks from an engine on a railway is evidence of negligence: Piggott _v._ Eastern Counties Railway Company, 3 C. B. 229 (E. C. L. R. vol. 54); Aldridge _v._ Great Western Railway Company, 3 M. & Gr. 515 (Id. 42), 4 Scott, N. R. 156, 1 Dowl. N. S. 247, S. C. [MARTIN, B. I held, in a case tried at Liverpool, in 1853, that, if locomotives are sent through the country emitting sparks, the persons doing so incur all the responsibilities of insurers; that they were liable for all the consequences.[59] I invited counsel to tender a bill of exceptions to that ruling. Water is a different matter.] It is the defendants’ water, therefore they are bound to see that no injury is done to any one by it. An action has been held to lie for so negligently constructing a hayrick at the extremity of the owner’s land, that, by reason of its spontaneous ignition, his neighbor’s house was burnt down: Vaughan _v._ Menlove, 3 Bing. N. C. 468 (E. C. L. R. vol. 32). [BRAMWELL, B. In that case discussions had arisen as to the probability of fire, and the defendant was repeatedly warned of the danger, and said he would chance it.] He referred to Wells _v._ Ody, 1 M. & W. 452. [ALDERSON, B. Is it an accident which any man could have foreseen?] A scientific man could have foreseen it. If no eye could have seen what was going on, the case might have been different; but the company’s servants could have seen, and actually did see, the ice which had collected about the plug. It is of the last importance, that these plugs, which are fire-plugs, should be kept by the company in working order. The accident cannot be considered as having been caused by the act of God: Siordet _v._ Hall, 4 Bing. 607 (Id. 13).

ALDERSON, B. I am of opinion that there was no evidence to be left to the jury. The case turns upon the question, whether the facts proved show that the defendants were guilty of negligence. Negligence is the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do.[60] The defendants might have been liable for negligence, if, unintentionally, they omitted to do that which a reasonable person would have done, or did that which a person taking reasonable precautions would not have done. A reasonable man would act with reference to the average circumstances of the temperature in ordinary years. The defendants had provided against such frosts as experience would have led men, acting prudently, to provide against; and they are not guilty of negligence, because their precautions proved insufficient against the effects of the extreme severity of the frost of 1855, which penetrated to a greater depth than any which ordinarily occurs south of the polar regions. Such a state of circumstances constitutes a contingency against which no reasonable man can provide. The result was an accident for which the defendants cannot be held liable.

MARTIN, B. I think that the direction was not correct, and that there was no evidence for the jury. The defendants are not responsible, unless there was negligence on their part. To hold otherwise would be to make the company responsible as insurers.

BRAMWELL, B. The Act of Parliament directed the defendants to lay down pipes, with plugs in them, as safety-valves, to prevent the bursting of the pipes. The plugs were properly made, and of proper material; but there was an accumulation of ice about this plug, which prevented it from acting properly. The defendants were not bound to keep the plugs clear. It appears to me that the plaintiff was under quite as much obligation to remove the ice and snow which had accumulated, as the defendants. However that may be, it appears to me that it would be monstrous to hold the defendants responsible because they did not foresee and prevent an accident, the cause of which was so obscure, that it was not discovered until many months after the accident had happened.

_Verdict to be entered for the defendants._[61]

YERKES _v._ NORTHERN PACIFIC R. CO. SUPREME COURT, WISCONSIN, NOVEMBER 29, 1901. _Reported in 112 Wisconsin Reports, 184._

DODGE, J.... Plaintiff assigns as error the definition of the due care which plaintiff was bound to exercise to avert the charge of contributory negligence, viz.:—

“The plaintiff cannot recover in this case unless you find that he was in no manner guilty of any want of ordinary care, or such care as persons of ordinary care ordinarily use, which contributed to his said injuries.”[62]

That this was an incorrect and misleading definition of “ordinary care” has been declared so often by this court as to make further discussion unnecessary. The rule has been repeatedly laid down that due care is to be tested by the surrounding circumstances, and that no definition is complete or correct which does not embody that element.[63] Ordinary care is the care ordinarily exercised by the great mass of mankind, or its type, the ordinarily prudent person, under the same or similar circumstances, and the omission of the last qualification, “under the same or similar circumstances,” or “under like circumstances,” is error. Boelter _v._ Ross L. Co., 103 Wis. 324, 330; Dehsoy _v._ Milwaukee E. R. & L. Co., 110 Wis. 412; Warden _v._ Miller, _ante_, p. 67. The necessity of the omitted qualification to a correct definition of due care is especially obvious under the circumstances of this case. What would be the care of an ordinarily prudent person, standing in safety upon a stationary platform, or even standing upon the perfect and level footboard of a moving switch engine, would not be the care to be expected of one attempting to perform the services of a yard man upon a bent, declining, and defective footboard such as here presented. The attention of the jury was not called by this instruction to a very important element which they must consider in order to decide whether the plaintiff was or was not guilty of contributory negligence, and the instruction to them on the subject was therefore misleading and erroneous.

HILL _v._ GLENWOOD SUPREME COURT, IOWA, JULY 13, 1904. _Reported in 124 Iowa Reports, 479._

WEAVER, J.[64] The plaintiff claims to have been injured upon one of the public walks in the city of Glenwood, and that such injury was occasioned by reason of the negligence of the city in the maintenance of the walk at the place of the accident, and without fault on his own part contributing thereto. From verdict and judgment in his favor for $665, the city appeals. In this court the appellant makes no claim that the city was not negligent, but a reversal is sought on other grounds.

* * * * *

It was shown without dispute that plaintiff had been blind for many years, and this fact is the basis of the criticism upon the charge given to the jury. In the third paragraph of the charge, the court, defining negligence, said: “(3) Negligence is defined to be the want of ordinary care; that is, such care as an ordinary prudent person would exercise under like circumstances. There is no precise definition of ordinary care, but it may be said that it is such care as an ordinarily prudent person would exercise under like circumstances, and should be proportioned to the danger and peril reasonably to be apprehended from a lack of proper prudence. This rule applies alike to both parties to this

## action, and may be used in determining whether either was negligent.” In

the eighth paragraph, referring to the plaintiff’s duty to exercise care for his own safety, the following language is used: “(8) It must also appear from the evidence that the plaintiff did not in any way contribute to the happening of the accident in question by any negligence on his part; that is, by his own want of ordinary care. The plaintiff, on his part, was under obligation to use ordinary care to prevent injury when passing over any sidewalk; and if he failed so to do, and his failure in any way contributed to the happening of the accident in question, then he cannot recover herein. The evidence shows without dispute that he was blind, and this fact should be considered by you in determining what ordinary care on his part would require when he was attempting to pass over one of the sidewalks of this city.” Counsel for appellant do not deny that the rules here laid down would be a correct statement of the law of negligence and contributory negligence as applied to the ordinary case of sidewalk accident, but it is urged that the conceded fact of plaintiff’s blindness made it the duty of the court to say to the jury that a blind person who attempts to use the public street “must exercise a higher degree of care and caution than a person ordinarily would be expected or required to use had he full possession of his sense of sight.” We cannot give this proposition our assent. It is too well established to require argument or citation of authority that the care which the city is bound to exercise in the maintenance of its streets is ordinary and reasonable care, the care which ordinarily marks the conduct of a person of average prudence and foresight. So, too, it is equally well settled that the care which a person using the street is bound to exercise on his own part to discover danger and avoid accident and injury is of precisely the same character, the ordinary and reasonable care of a person of average prudence and foresight. The streets are for the use of the general public without discrimination; for the weak, the lame, the halt and the blind, as well as for those possessing perfect health, strength, and vision. The law casts upon one no greater burden of care than upon the other. It is true, however, that in determining what is reasonable or ordinary care we must look to the circumstances and surroundings of each particular case. As said by us in Graham _v._ Oxford, 105 Iowa, 708: “There is no fixed rule for determining what is ordinary care applicable to all cases, but each case must be determined according to its own facts.” In the case before us the plaintiff’s blindness is simply one of the facts which the jury must give consideration, in finding whether he did or did not act with the care which a reasonably prudent man would ordinarily exercise, when burdened by such infirmity. In other words, the measures which a traveler upon the street must employ for his own protection depend upon the nature and extent of the peril to which he knows, or in the exercise of reasonable prudence ought to know, he is exposed. The greater and more imminent the risk, the more he is required to look out for and guard against injury to himself; but the care thus exercised is neither more nor less than ordinary care—the care which men of ordinary prudence and experience may reasonably be expected to exercise under like circumstances. See cases cited in 21 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, (2d ed.) 465, note 1. In the case at bar the plaintiff was rightfully upon the street, and if he was injured by reason of the negligence of the city, and without contributory negligence on his part, he was entitled to a verdict. In determining whether he did exercise due care it was proper for the jury, as we have already indicated, to consider his blindness, and in view of that condition, and all the surrounding facts and circumstances, find whether he exercised ordinary care and prudence. If he did, he was not guilty of contributory negligence.

This view of the law seems to be fairly embodied in the instructions to which exception is taken. If the appellant believed, as it now argues, that the charge should have been more specific, and dwelt with greater emphasis upon the fact of plaintiff’s blindness as an element for the consideration of the jury in finding whether he exercised reasonable care, it had the right to ask an instruction framed to meet its views in that respect. No such request was made, and the omission of the court to so amplify the charge on its own motion was not error.[65]

KEITH _v._ WORCESTER STREET R. Co. SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT, MASSACHUSETTS, NOVEMBER 26, 1907. _Reported in 196 Massachusetts Reports, 478._

Two Actions of Tort for personal injuries received by the plaintiff’s intestate caused by her falling when stepping across street railway rails which were piled by the defendant street railway company on the highway next to the curbing, and were allowed by the street railway company and the defendant town to remain there, and which, it was alleged, constituted an obstruction of the highway.[66]

The accident happened in the daytime. The plaintiff’s intestate was near-sighted, and could not recognize a friend at a distance of more than ten or twelve feet.

At the trial in the Superior Court, defendants requested the following instruction:—

“If the plaintiff’s intestate had defective eyesight, she should take greater care in walking the street than one of good eyesight; and if she failed to use this greater degree of care, the verdict must be for the defendant.”

This request was refused, subject to exception.

In the charge to the jury, the presiding judge stated: “The plaintiff contends and has got to show by a fair preponderance of the evidence that Mrs. Keith was injured, and that she was injured while she was using ... a degree of care that a reasonably prudent and careful person,

## acting prudently and carefully at the time, would have exercised and

should have exercised in your judgment under all the circumstances then surrounding Mrs. Keith. That means not only external circumstances, that means not only the way in which the rails were placed, the location of the car, the necessity of action on her part, but it means also with reference to her personal peculiarities as they were shown to exist upon the stand. For instance, the conduct of a perfectly sound and healthy person may be properly regarded as one thing, when the same conduct on the part of a diseased or infirm person might be regarded as something very different.

“What might be in your judgment perfectly reasonable and proper and careful on the part of a sound person might be regarded fairly by you as improper and careless on the part of an infirm person.

“So, in this case, while I cannot instruct you as a matter of law that Mrs. Keith, if you find her to be near-sighted, was bound to use a higher degree of care than a person not near-sighted, I have got to leave it to you as a matter of fact whether a near-sighted person would not, in order to be careful, have to exercise a higher degree of care than a person not near-sighted. In other words, I have got to leave it to you to determine whether or not a near-sighted person is using due care if he or she under the particular circumstances acts exactly as a person who was not near-sighted would have done. In other words, it is a matter of fact for you to determine whether Mrs. Keith was called on to do differently from a person in full possession of eyesight rather than as a matter of law for me to direct you in regard to it.”

The jury found for the plaintiff in both cases.

RUGG, J.... The defendant asked the court to rule that if the person injured “had defective eyesight, she should take greater care in walking the street than one of good sight, and if she failed to use this greater degree of care the verdict must be for the defendant.” This request properly was refused, for the reason that it directed a verdict upon a single phase of the testimony, which was not necessarily decisive. In this respect the prayer differs vitally from the one which in Winn _v._ Lowell, 1 Allen, 177, this court held should have been given.[67] We see no reason for modifying the decision in Winn _v._ Lowell, nor is it inconsistent with subsequent cases. The standard of care established by the law is what the ordinarily prudent and cautious person would do to protect himself under given conditions. There is no higher or different standard for one who is aged, feeble, blind, halt, deaf or otherwise impaired in capacity, than for one in perfect physical condition. It has frequently, in recent as well as earlier cases, been said, in referring to one under some impediment, that greater caution or increased circumspection may be required in view of these adverse conditions. See, for example, Winn _v._ Lowell, 1 Allen, 177; Hall _v._ West End Street Railway, 168 Mass. 461; Hilborn _v._ Boston & Northern Street Railway, 191 Mass. 14; Vecchioni _v._ New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, 191 Mass. 9; Hawes _v._ Boston Elevated Railway, 192 Mass. 324; Hamilton _v._ Boston & Northern Street Railway, 193 Mass. 324. These expressions mean nothing more than that a person so afflicted must put forth a greater degree of effort than one not acting under any disabilities, in order to attain that standard of care which the law has established for everybody. When looked at from one standpoint, it is incorrect to say that a blind person must exercise a higher degree of care than one whose sight is perfect, but in another aspect, a blind person may be obliged to take precautions, practice vigilance and sharpen other senses, unnecessary for one of clear vision, in order to attain that degree of care which the law requires. It may depend in some slight degree upon how the description of duty begins, where the emphasis may fall at a given moment, but when the whole proposition is stated, the rights of the parties are as fully protected in the one way as in the other. It is perhaps more logical to say that the plaintiff is bound to use ordinary care, and that in passing upon what ordinary care demands, due consideration should be given to blindness or other infirmities. This was the course pursued by the Superior Court. Neff _v._ Wellesley, 148 Mass. 487. Smith _v._ Wildes, 143 Mass. 556. But it is also correct to say that in the exercise of common prudence one of defective eyesight must usually as matter of general knowledge take more care and employ keener watchfulness in walking upon the streets and avoiding obstructions than the same person with good eyesight, in order to reach the standard established by the law for all persons alike, whether they be weak or strong, sound or deficient.

_Exceptions overruled._[68]

MEREDITH _v._ REED SUPREME COURT, INDIANA, MAY TERM, 1866. _Reported in 26 Indiana Reports, 334._

GREGORY, C. J. Meredith sued Reed before a justice for an injury done by a stallion of the latter to the mare of the former, resulting in the death of the mare. Jury trial, verdict for the defendant; motion for a new trial overruled and judgment. The evidence is in the record. The facts are substantially as follows: In May, 1865, the defendant owned a stallion, which had previously been let to mares, but owing to the sickness of the owner, was not so let during the spring of 1865. He was a gentle stallion, and had never been known by the owner to be guilty of any vicious acts. Not being in use, he had been kept up in a stable for four or five months. He was secured in the stable by a strong halter and chain fastened through an iron ring in the manger. The stable door was securely fastened on the inside by a strong iron hasp, passed over a staple, and a piece of chain passed two or three times through the staple over the hasp, and the ends firmly tied together with a strong cord. It was also fastened on the outside by a piece of timber, one end of which was planted in the ground, while the other rested against the door. The horse was thus secured on the day and night the injury occurred. The gate of the enclosure surrounding the stable was shut and fastened as usual. About 11 o’clock that night the horse was found loose on the highway, and did the injury complained of. Early the following morning the outside gate was found open; the stable door was found open, with the log prop lying some distance to one side, and the chain which had been passed through the staple was gone, and the cord with which it had been tied was found cut and the pieces lying on the floor.

There are forty-two alleged errors assigned, but many of them are not, in our opinion, so presented as to entitle them to consideration in this Court. So far as the substantial rights of the appellant are involved, all the questions properly presented resolve themselves into the inquiry as to the nature and extent of the liability of the owner of a domestic animal for injuries done by it to the personal property of another, disconnected from any trespass to real estate.

It is contended, on the one hand, that ordinary care was all the law required of the defendant in this case. On the other it is claimed that the utmost care was necessary to free him from liability. Ordinary care is all that the law required in the case in judgment. What is ordinary care in some cases would be carelessness in others. The law regards the circumstances surrounding each case, and the nature of the animal or machinery under control. Greater care is required to be taken of a stallion than of a mare; so in the management of a steam-engine, greater care is necessary than in the use of a plow. Yet it is all ordinary care; such care as a prudent, careful man would take under like circumstances. The degree of care is always in proportion to the danger to be apprehended. The case at bar was properly sent to the jury, and the verdict is fully sustained by the evidence.

_The judgment is affirmed, with costs._

DENVER ELECTRIC COMPANY _v._ SIMPSON SUPREME COURT, COLORADO, APRIL TERM, 1895. _Reported in 21 Colorado Reports, 371._

## Action for damage caused to plaintiff, while passing along a public

alley, by his coming in contact with one of defendants’ wires heavily charged with electricity, which had become detached from its overhead fastening, and was hanging down to within about two feet of the ground. At the trial there was some evidence tending to show that the position of the wire was due to the negligence of the defendants. Verdict for plaintiff, and judgment thereon. Defendant appealed; alleging as one ground the giving of certain instructions as to the care required by defendant. Those instructions are stated in the opinion.[69]

CAMPBELL, J.... This court does not recognize any degrees of negligence, such as slight or gross, and logically it ought not to recognize any degrees in its antithesis, care.[70] The court instructed the jury in this case that the defendant was not an insurer of the safety of plaintiff, but that in constructing its line and maintaining the same in repair, it was held to the utmost degree of care and diligence; that in this respect it is bound to the highest degree of care, skill, and diligence in the construction and maintenance of its lines of wire and other appurtenances, and in carrying on its business, so as to make the same safe against accidents so far as such safety can, by the use of such care and diligence, be secured. If it observed such degree of care, it was not liable; if it failed therein, it was liable for injuries caused thereby.

We think the court was unfortunate in attempting to draw any distinctions in the degrees of care or negligence. It would have been safer and the better practice to instruct the jury,—which ought hereafter to be observed,—even in cases like the one before us, that the defendant was bound to exercise that reasonable care and caution which would be exercised by a reasonably prudent and cautious person under the same or similar circumstances. In addition to this, the jury should have been instructed that the care increases as the danger does, and that where the business in question is attended with great peril to the public, the care to be exercised by the person conducting the business is commensurate with the increased danger. But, in effect, this is what the court did. Under the facts of the case, the law required of the defendant conducting, as it did, a business so dangerous to the public, the highest degree of care which skill and foresight can attain consistent with the practical conduct of its business under the known methods and the present state of the particular art. This is the measure of the duty owed by a common carrier to a passenger for hire. Thompson’s Carriers of Passengers, p. 208, and cases cited. Not for the same reason, or because the doctrine rests upon the same principle, but with even greater force should this rule apply to a person or corporation engaged in the equally, if not more, dangerous business of distributing electricity throughout a city by means of wires strung over the public alleys and streets, in so far as concerned its duty to the travelling public.

In those courts where degrees of negligence are not countenanced, nevertheless, in cases where the duty of a common carrier of passengers is laid down, the jury are told that carriers are bound to the utmost degree of care which human foresight can attain. This is upon the theory that reasonable or ordinary care in a case of that kind is the highest care which human ingenuity can practically exercise, and that, as a matter of law, courts will hold every reasonably prudent and careful man to the exercise of the utmost care and diligence in protecting the public from the dangers necessarily incident to the carrying on of a hazardous business.

Where the facts of a case naturally lead equally intelligent persons honestly to entertain different views as to the degree of care resting upon a defendant, the court ought not to lay down a rule prescribing any

## particular or specific degree in that case. But where all minds

concur—as they must in a case like the one we are now considering—in regarding the carrying on of a business as fraught with peril to the public inherent in the nature of the business itself, the court makes no mistake in defining the duty of those conducting it as the exercise of the utmost care. It was, therefore, not prejudicial error for the court to tell the jury in this case what the law requires of the defendant, viz., the highest degree of care in conducting its business.

* * * * *

_Judgment affirmed._[71]

LAKE ERIE & WESTERN R. CO. _v._ FORD SUPREME COURT, INDIANA, OCTOBER 23, 1906. _Reported in 167 Indiana Reports, 205._

GILLETT, J. Complaint by appellee to recover damages for loss of property by fire, by reason of the alleged negligence of appellant. There was a verdict and judgment in favor of appellee.[72]

* * * * *

Appellant complains of appellee’s instructions five and six, which were given by the court in the order indicated by their numbers. They are as follows: “(5) It is the duty of a railroad to use all reasonable precaution in running and operating its trains, and in providing its engines with proper spark-arresters, so as to prevent injury to the property of others by sparks or fire emitted or thrown therefrom. (6) If you believe from all of the evidence and circumstances in the case that at the time and prior to the destruction of the property of the plaintiff, as alleged in his complaint, there were a number of wooden buildings and structures standing on either side of the defendant’s track and in close proximity thereto, including the barn or stable of said Melissa McFall in the town of Hobbs, and at such time it was, and for some time prior thereto it had been, unusually dry, thereby rendering such wood buildings and structures, including the barn or stable of said Melissa McFall, and also the property of the plaintiff herein, unusually dry, inflammable, and easily set on fire by sparks and coals of fire emitted from defendant’s engines in passing through said town, and that there was also at the time, and for several hours prior thereto had been, a strong wind blowing continuously across the defendant’s track, in the direction of the barn or stable of said Melissa McFall, and the wooden buildings and structures near the defendant’s track, including the property of the plaintiff herein, which greatly and unusually increased the danger and risk of setting fire to such buildings by sparks and coals of fire emitted or thrown from its engine in passing through said town, over ordinary times and conditions, and all of which facts and conditions the defendant knew at the time, the defendant, under such circumstances, would be required to use a greater degree of care in operating and running its engines through said town to prevent injury to such buildings or property by sparks or coals of fire emitted or thrown from its engine, than it would at ordinary times and under ordinary conditions.”

Assuming, without deciding, that it was not error for the court, in its fifth instruction, to use the term “reasonable precaution,” instead of the preferable one, “ordinary care,”[73] and assuming further, since the care that the company was required to exercise was, so far as the element of law was concerned, to be measured by a fixed standard, which was to be fully complied with (Wharton, Negligence [2d ed.], § 46), that it was proper to use the expression “all reasonable precaution,” the question arises whether it is not likely that the jury was misled by the charge in the next instruction that in the circumstances therein hypothetically stated “a greater degree of care” was required than in ordinary conditions. The sixth instruction would have been proper, had the court charged, after stating to the jury hypothetically the conditions which existed, leaving it to them to determine whether the danger was increased, that, in the event they so found, it was their duty, in determining whether reasonable or ordinary care had been exercised, to consider the increased danger of fire, yet we cannot say that this was the fair meaning of the words in which said instruction was couched.

There has been much discussion in the books concerning the correctness of the old doctrine as to degrees of negligence. New York Central R. Co. _v._ Lockwood, (1873) 17 Wall. 357, 21 L. Ed. 627; Steamboat New World _v._ King, (1853) 16 How. 469, 14 L. Ed. 1019; Ohio, etc., R. Co. _v._ Selby, (1874) 47 Ind. 471, 17 Am. Rep. 719; Pennsylvania Co. _v._ Sinclair, (1878) 62 Ind. 301, 30 Am. Rep. 185; Wharton, Negligence (2d ed.), § 44; 6 Albany L. J. 313; 2 Ames & Smith, Cases on Torts, 143; 21 Am. and Eng. Ency. Law (2d ed.), 459, and cases cited. While we apprehend that the adverse opinions which have been expressed concerning such doctrine were not intended to be understood as militating against the view that the legal standard of care is not the same in all relations, or to discountenance the practice of charging the jury in terms that indicate the extent of care required, as great, ordinary, or slight (1 Shearman & Redfield, Negligence [5th ed.], § 47), yet the point which we wish to enforce now is that in all cases negligence consists simply in a failure to measure up to the legal standard of care. It was said by Willes, J., in Grill _v._ General Iron Screw, etc., Co., (1866) L. R. 1 C. P. 600, 611: “Confusion has arisen from regarding negligence as a positive instead of a negative word. It is really the absence of such care as it was the duty of the defendant to use.”

Here we admittedly have a case in which it was the duty of the company to exercise ordinary care, but what does an instruction mean that informs the jury that in certain circumstances a greater degree of care is required, when it has for a background an instruction, which is applicable to all circumstances, that all reasonable precaution must be used? We think that in such a case the jury would understand that more than ordinary care was required, and it is not improbable that the effect of giving such an instruction, following an instruction like 5, would be to lead the jury to infer that the defendant’s duty was raised by the circumstances recited to a pitch of intensity that could not reasonably have been attained.

It was said by this court in Meredith _v._ Reed, (1866) 26 Ind. 334, 337: “What is ordinary care in some cases, would be carelessness in others. The law regards the circumstances surrounding each case, and the nature of the animal or machinery under control. Greater care is required to be taken of a stallion than of a mare; so in the management of a steam engine, greater care is necessary than in the use of a plough. Yet it is all ordinary care.” The legal standard of care required in a particular relationship is always the same, although the amount of care thus required depends upon the particular circumstances. Cleveland, etc., R. Co. _v._ Terry, (1858) 8 Ohio St. 570; Weiser _v._ Broadway, etc., St. R. Co., (1895) 6 Ohio Dec. 215. As has been observed by a modern writer: “This standard may vary in fact, but not in law.” 2 Jaggard, Torts, p. 819. In an article in 3 [6] Albany, L. J. 314, it is said: “The ratio, proportion or correspondence of diligence to circumstances, of care to surroundings, is fixed and identical. And, in determining a question of diligence or negligence in either case [as between two cases previously used by way of illustration], it would be only necessary to apply the same rule to varying circumstances and persons, to demand the same ratio between varying extremes. And it is not too much to assert that all the perplexity and misunderstanding on the subject of diligence and negligence are due to the habit of confounding the specific acts and circumstances, which must always vary, with the ratio or relation between them, which remains always the same.”

In 13 Am. and Eng. Ency. Law (2d ed.), 416, it is said: “The very statement of the general rule that reasonable care is required to prevent injuries to others from fire, implies that what is reasonable care must depend upon the circumstances of each particular case. It is, however, inaccurate to say, as many of the cases do, that the degree of care varies with the particular circumstances. It is only reasonable care that is required in any case; but the greater the danger, or the more likely the communication of fire and the ignition of the property of others, the more precautions and the closer vigilance reasonable care requires.” As above suggested, cases can be found in which it is stated that the degree of care to be used depends upon the danger, but, as has been observed by this court, it is not every statement of the law as found in an opinion or text-book, however well and accurately put, which can properly be embodied in an instruction. Garfield _v._ State, (1881) 74 Ind. 60. The viciousness of the instruction in question lies in its tendency to lead the jury to infer that the legal standard of ordinary care was raised by the circumstances recited, thus making possible the inference that a great but undefined extent of care was required, whereas all that the law exacted was the ordinary care which the situation demanded, or such care as it is to be assumed that an ordinarily prudent man would exercise in the circumstances, were the risk his own.[74]

In this case the acts and omissions which the complaint charged as negligent were various, so that the question of what was ordinary care arose in a number of ways, and we can only conclude, in view of the misleading character of the instruction under consideration, that prejudicial error has intervened.

_Judgment reversed, and a new trial ordered._[75]

TRACY _v._ WOOD UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT, DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND, NOVEMBER TERM, 1822. _Reported in 3 Mason (U. S. Circuit Court), 132._

Assumpsit for negligence in losing 764½ doubloons, intrusted to the defendant to be carried from New York to Boston, as a gratuitous bailee. The gold was put up in two distinct bags, one within the other, and at the trial, upon the general issue, it appeared that the defendant, who was a money broker, brought them on board of the steamboat bound from New York to Providence; that in the morning while the steamboat lay at New York, and a short time before sailing, one of the bags was discovered to be lost, and that the other bag was left by the defendant on a table in his valise in the cabin, for a few moments only, while he went on deck to send information of the supposed loss to the plaintiffs, there being then a large number of passengers on board, and the loss being publicly known among them. On the defendant’s return the second bag was also missing and after every search no trace of the manner of the loss could be ascertained. The valise containing both bags was brought on board by the defendant on the preceding evening, and put by him in a berth in the forward cabin. He left it there all night, having gone in the evening to the theatre, and on his return having slept in the middle cabin. The defendant had his own money to a considerable amount in the same valise. There was evidence to show that he made inquiries on board, if the valise would be safe, and that he was informed, that if it contained articles of value, it had better be put into the custody of the captain’s clerk in the bar, under lock and key. There were many other circumstances in the case. The argument at the trial turned wholly on the question of gross negligence, and all the facts were fully commented on by counsel. But as the case is intended only to present the discussion on the question of law, it is not thought necessary to recapitulate them.[76]

STORY, J., after summing up the facts, said, I agree to the law as laid down at the bar, that in cases of bailees without reward, they are liable only for gross negligence. Such are depositaries, or persons receiving deposits without reward for their care; and mandataries, or persons receiving goods to carry from one place to another without reward. The latter is the predicament of the defendant. He undertook to carry the gold in question for the plaintiff, gratuitously, from New York to Providence, and he is not responsible unless he has been guilty of gross negligence. Nothing in this case arises out of the personal character of the defendant, as broker. He is not shown to be either more or less negligent than brokers generally are; nor if he was, is that fact brought home to the knowledge of the plaintiffs. They confided the money to him as a broker of ordinary diligence and care, having no other knowledge of him; and, therefore, no question arises as to what would have been the case, if the plaintiffs had known him to be a very careless or a very attentive man. Jones’ Bail. 46. The language of the books, as to what constitutes gross negligence, or not, is sometimes loose and inaccurate from the general manner in which propositions are stated. When it is said, that gross negligence is equivalent to fraud, it is not meant that it cannot exist without fraud. There may be very gross negligence in cases where there is no pretence that the party has been guilty of fraud, though certainly such negligence is often presumptive of fraud. In determining what is gross negligence, we must take into consideration what is the nature of the thing bailed. If it be of little value, less care is required than if it be of great value. If a bag of apples were left in a street for a short time, without a person to guard it, it would certainly not be more than ordinary neglect. But if the bag were of jewels or gold, such conduct would be gross negligence. In short, care and diligence are to be proportional to the value of the goods, the temptation and facility of stealing them, and the danger of losing them. So Sir William Jones lays down the law. “Diamonds, gold, and precious trinkets,” says he, “ought from their nature to be kept with peculiar care, under lock and key; it would, therefore, be gross negligence in a depositary to leave such deposit in an open antechamber; and _ordinary_ neglect, at least, to let them remain on the table, where they might possibly tempt his servants.” Jones’ Bail. 38, 46, 62. So in Smith _v._ Horne, 2 Moore’s R. 18, it was held to be gross negligence in the case of a carrier, under the usual notice of not being responsible for goods above £5 in value, to send goods in a cart with one man, when two were usually sent to see to the delivery of them. So in Booth _v._ Wilson, 1 Barn. & Ald. 59, it was held gross negligence in a gratuitous bailee to put a horse into a dangerous pasture. In Batson _v._ Donovan, 4 Barn. & Ald. 21, the general doctrine was admitted in the fullest terms. It appears to me that the true way of considering cases of this nature is, to consider whether the party has omitted that care which bailees, without hire, or mandataries of ordinary prudence usually take of property of this nature. If he has, then it constitutes a case of gross negligence. The question is not whether he has omitted that care, which very prudent persons usually take of their own property, for the omission of that would be but slight negligence; nor whether he has omitted that care which prudent persons ordinarily take of their own property, for that would be but ordinary negligence: but whether there be a want of that care, which men of common sense, however inattentive, usually take, or ought to be presumed to take of their property, for that is gross negligence. The contract of bailees without reward is not merely for good faith, but for such care as persons of common prudence in their situation usually bestow upon such property. If they omit such care, it is gross negligence.

The present is a case of a mandatary of money. Such property is by all persons, negligent as well as prudent, guarded with much greater care than common property. The defendant is a broker, accustomed to the use and transportation of money, and it must be presumed he is a person of ordinary diligence. He kept his own money in the same valise; and took no better care of it than of the plaintiff’s. Still if the jury are of opinion that he omitted to take that reasonable care of the gold which bailees without reward in his situation usually take, or which he himself usually took of such property, under such circumstances, he has been guilty of gross negligence.

_Verdict for the plaintiffs for $5700, the amount of one bag of the gold; for the defendant as to the other bag._[77]

DOLPHIN _v._ WORCESTER STREET R. CO. SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 18, 1905. _Reported in 189 Massachusetts Reports, 270._

## Action of tort under Revised Laws,