The plaintiff owned and possessed a building, used as a storehouse, in Greenburgh, Westchester county, standing on the easterly side of the defendants' railroad, and about sixty-seven and one-half feet from the track. It was in the charge of two of the plaintiff's servants. The outer doors were kept locked, and no fire was used in it. On the 7th February, 1852, it took fire and was consumed. It was proved that, about twenty-five minutes before the fire was discovered, a train of cars of the defendants, drawn by a locomotive engine called the Oneida, passed the place. On the first floor of the building there was a parcel of shavings and a quantity of lumber, and some of the glass in the windows of that story had been broken. As I understand the testimony, the place where the fire was first seen was on this floor, and not far from one of the windows. Having proved these facts, and that the day on which the fire took place was windy, the direction of the wind being towards the building, and the persons in charge having sworn that no person, to their knowledge, had been in it during that day, the plaintiff proposed to prove, by a witness who lived close to the railroad and about one-fourth of a mile from the building, that shortly before it was burned he had seen sparks and *Page 220 fire thrown, from the engines used by the defendants in running their trains, through the witness' premises, a greater distance than this building stood from the track of the railroad, and that he had picked up from the track, after the passage of the trains, lighted coals more than two inches in length. The evidence was objected to by the defendants' counsel and excluded by the court. The plaintiff's counsel excepted. The plaintiff also gave evidence which, as his counsel insists, tended to show that the engines used by the defendants lacked some apparatus which was in use upon some other locomotive engines, and which rendered the latter less liable to commuicate fire to substances at the side of the road than those which were without that apparatus. The judge, in the first instance, denied a motion made by the defendants for a nonsuit; but after the defendants had proceeded at some length in the examination of witnesses in their behalf, he stopped the further examination of a witness and nonsuited the plaintiff.
It is argued by the defendants' counsel that the evidence offered and rejected was too remote and indefinite to have a just influence upon the particular question in issue in the case; that it did not refer to any particular engine, and that it may be that the one which ran past the plaintiff's premises, just before the discovery of the fire, was quite a different one from those which scattered fire on the occasion to which the evidence offered would apply. This argument is not without force; but at the same time I think it is met by the peculiar circumstances of this case. These engines run night and day, and with such speed that no particular note can be taken of them as they pass. Moreover, there is such a general resemblance among them, that a stranger to the business cannot readily distinguish one from another. It will, therefore, generally happen that when the property of a person is set on fire by an engine, the owner, though he may be perfectly satisfied that it was caused by an engine, and may be able to show *Page 221 facts sufficient legitimately to establish it, yet he may be utterly ignorant what particular engine, or even what particular train did the mischief. It would be, practically, quite impossible by any inquiries to find out the offending engine, for a large proportion of those owned by the company are constantly in rapid motion. The business of running the trains on a railroad supposes a unity of management and a general similarity in the fashion of the engines and the character of the operation. I think, therefore, it is competent prima facie evidence, for a person seeking to establish the responsibility of the company for a burning upon the track of the road, after refuting every other probable cause of the fire, to show that, about the time when it happened, the trains which the company was running past the location of the fire were so managed in respect to the furnaces as to be likely to set on fire objects not more remote than the property burned. It is presumed to be in the power of the company, which has intimate relations with all its engineers and conductors, to controvert the fact sworn to if it is untrue, or, if true in a particular instance, that it was not so in respect to the engines which passed the place, at a proper time, before the occurrence of the fire. The effect of the evidence would only be to shift the onus probandi upon the company, and that, under the circumstances of this case, seems to me to be unavoidable. The rule respecting the onus often depends upon the special circumstances of the case, and it not unfrequently happens that a party is obliged to establish a negative proposition. (C. Hill's Notes, 490, and cases.) For instance, if it were proved to be universally true that the engines on the defendants' road scattered fire upon both sides, so as to endanger property as near the track as this building was, and it was established, as was done in this case, that the property claimed to have been set on fire by the negligence of the defendants was actually burned without any known cause or circumstance of suspicion besides the engines; it *Page 222 would clearly be incumbent on the defendants to show that they were not the cause. The present case is only less strong in degree. It was offered to be shown that a practice on the part of the company, which would have endangered this building, was indulged in about the time and near the place where the building was burned. That fact rendered it probable to a certain degree that the injury was attributable to that cause, but it left it in the power of the defendants not only to controvert the evidence generally, but to show that the special facts applicable directly to the occurrence of the fire were such as to overcome the general inference from the plaintiff's evidence, and avoid the presumption which that evidence created. I am of opinion therefore that the judge erred in this ruling.
The evidence excluded had a bearing upon both branches of the case which the plaintiff undertook to establish. It not only rendered it probable that the fire was communicated from the furnace of one of the defendants' engines, but it raised an inference, of some weight, that there was something unsuitable and improper in the construction or management of the engine which caused the fire.
It is unnecessary to express an opinion upon the case as it stood, without the evidence of which the plaintiff was deprived. It may be that, when the case is tried upon the principle indicated, it will present no question or a very different one from that which is now before us.
The judgment must be reversed, and there must be a new trial.
Loading…