Annapolis & Elkridge Railroad v. Baldwin

Robinson, J'., delivered the opinion of the Court. The second and third counts in the declaration allege that the plaintiff’s engine and cars, while making one of' their regular trips between Annapolis Junction and Annapolis, were thrown off the track and greatly damaged from a collision with the defendant’s ox, which was, at the time, on the track through the negligence of its owner, and that said collision occurred without any negligence or want of care on the part of the company or its agents. The demurrer admits the facts thus averred, and the question is whether, upon this concession, the defendant is liable for damages. This is the first case in this Court in which a railroad company has sued the owner for damages resulting from a collision with stock trespassing on its road; but upon the conceuuion of the defendant we do not see on what ground he is to escape liability.

The injury, it is argued, is too remote. In actions of this kind the damage, it is time, must be the direct consequence of the defendant’s negligence. Iu other words, as it is put in the books, the negligence must be the proximate cavue of the injury. But here the plaintiff was en ⁹⁰ titled to the unobstructed use of its road, and the defendant admits that his ox was upon the track through his negligence, in consequence of which the plaintiff’s cars and engine were thrown off the track and damaged.

The injury, then, was the direct result of the defendant’s negligence. If negligence is once admitted or established, it is no answer that the defendant did not foresee the injury, or that the damage was greater than he anticipated. Suppose the defendant could not have foreseen that the ox would he upon the track at the time the plaintiff was making one of its regular trips, and did not anticipate the engine and cars would be thrown from the track, even if a collision did occur. That is no answer.

In point of fact the ox was upon the track, and there, too, through the defendant’s negligence, and the engine and cars were thrown off the track by the collision. The injury was the direct result of the negligence, and if so, the defendant was clearly liable. This, however, is not a case of first impression. In other States where the question has arisen, the Courts have uniformly held the owner liable for damages resulting from a collision with stock trespassing on a railroad track through the negligence of the owner.

Housatonic R. R. Co. vs. Knowles, 30 Conn., 313 ; Han’l and St. Jo. R. R. Co. vs. Kenney, 41 Misso., 272; Sinram vs. P. F. W. and C. Railroad Co., 28 Ind., 244 ; Railroad Co. vs. Skinner, 19 Penn., 298 -304, and Drake vs. P. & E. R. R. Co., 51 Penn. State, 240. The English decisions in actions of negligence fully sustain, we think, this view.

In Child vs. Hearn, 9 Law Rep. Exc., 176, the plaintiff, in the employment of a railroad company, was returning from his work along the line upon a trolley propelled by hand, and ran over the defendant’s pigs which had escaped from the defendant’s land, the trolley was upset and the plaintiff injured. In an action of damages by the plaintiff against the owner of the pigs, ⁹¹ it was held the owner was not liable, because the proof showed that the pigs escaped through a defect in the fence, which belonged to the company, and which it was the duty of the company to keep in repair. The