Sparks from the engine of a passing mail train set fire to the plaintiff’s cart lodge. The claim against the railway company was that they ‘so carelessly, negligently, and unskilfully managed and conducted their said steam-carriage and steam-engine’ that the plaintiff’s cart house was set on fire.
Held: The point in the case was the admissibility of evidence.
Tindal CJ described the underlying legal principles of the claim as a whole: ‘The defendants are a company intrusted by the legislature with an agent of an extremely dangerous and unruly character, for their own private and particular advantage: and the law requires of them that they shall, in the exercise of the rights and powers so conferred upon them, adopt such precautions as may reasonably prevent damage to the property of third persons through or near which their railway passes. The evidence in this case was abundantly sufficient to shew that the injury of which the plaintiff complains was caused by the emission of sparks, or particles of ignited coke, coming from one of the defendants’ engines; and there was no proof of any precaution adopted by the company to avoid such a mischance. I therefore think the jury came to a right conclusion, in finding that the company were guilty of negligence, and that the injury complained of was the result of such negligence.’ Thus although the locomotive was regarded as ‘dangerous’, liability still turned on negligence.
Judges:
Tindal CJ
Citations:
[1846] EngR 734, (1846) 3 CB 229, (1846) 136 ER 92
Links:
Cited by:
Cited – Stannard (T/A Wyvern Tyres) v Gore CA 4-Oct-2012
The defendant, now appellant, ran a business involving the storage of tyres. The claimant neighbour’s own business next door was severely damaged in a fire of the tyres escaping onto his property. The court had found him liable in strict liability . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Negligence
Updated: 02 May 2022; Ref: scu.302629