Ryan v. Gross ex rel. Gontrum

Robinson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The law as applicable to this case, was, we think, fairly put to the jury, and whatever grounds the defendants may have to complain of the damages awarded by the jury, they have no ground it seems to us to complain of the instructions granted by the Court. The defendants were contractors for the grading of a section of the Philadelphia extension of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and in grading the road they used what is commonly known as a steam shovel plough, in other words, a shovel plough with a steam engine attached. Sparks from the engine, set fire to dead grass and rubbish along the side of the road, and spread thence to the woodland of the plaintiffs adjoining the road-bed, destroying about one hundred and fifty acres of growing timber.

We quite agree that in actions of this kind, the proximate cause is alone to be considered, and by proximate cause, as used in this connection, we mean that the damage must be the direct and natural consequence of the defendants’ negligence, without any intervening force or power operating as a cause of the injury. But we cannot agree that the plaintiff failed to offer any evidence legally sufficient to justify the jury in finding such negligence. On the contrary, the witness Brown, who was on the engine at the time the fire happened, and who shortly afterwards saw the grate which was attached to the smoke-stack for the purpose of preventing the escape of sparks, says, “it was full of big holes,” and “was, in fact, worn out.” He did not see, it is true, the grate either before, or on the day of the fire, and it may be said that his evidence is not, therefore, conclusive as to its condition at the time of the fire. But it was, to say the least, evidence, and proper to go to the jury; and besides, it was open to the defendants to rebut any presumption arising from such evidence by prov ³⁸⁰ ing the actual condition of the grate at that time.

This, however, they entirely failed to do. It was their duty to see that the spark arrester was in proper repair, and if it was not in proper repair, in consequence of which sparks escaped from the engine and set fire to rubbish along the road and spread thence to the plaintiff’s land, these facts were sufficient to justify the jury in finding negligence on the part of the defendants, and that the destruction of the plaintiff’s property was the direct and natural consequence of such negligence. This question was fully considered in the case of Annapolis & Elkridge R. R. Co. vs. Gantt, 39 Md., 115 . In that case sparks from the engine of the defendant company set fire to dead grass and bushes on the side of the roadbed, and spread thence to the land of the plaintiff adjoining, and it was argued in that case as in this, that the injury was too remoté, and the decisions in Ryan vs. New York Central R. R. Co., 35 N. Y., 210 , and Penna.

R. R. Co. vs. Kerr, 62 Penna., 353, now cited by the appellants, were relied on in support of this contention. But the Court said, “The fact that the fire began upon the side of the railroad and spread to the plaintiff’s land, cannot, in any just sense, be said to render the injury suffered by him of a nature merely remote and incidental within the meaning of the rule. The fire consumed his property in its natural and direct course, without any ‘intervening force or power to' stand as the cause of the misfortune,’ and the injury suffered was, therefore, its proximate effect.” And the principle thus laid down was recognized and approved in Phila., Wilm. & Balto. R. R. Co. vs. Constable, et al., 39 Md., 149 , and Balto. & Ohio R. R. Co. vs. Shipley, 39 Md., 251 , and is fully sustained by the general