Mississippi Home Insurance v. Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railway Co.

70 Miss. 119
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 15, 1892
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 70 Miss. 119 (Mississippi Home Insurance v. Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mississippi Home Insurance v. Louisville, New Orleans & Texas Railway Co., 70 Miss. 119 (Mich. 1892).

Opinion

Cooper, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

This suit was instituted by the administrators of S. Spengler to recover against the appellee damages for the loss of certain mills and machinery, sustained by the heirs of the intestate, resulting from a fire alleged to have been negligently set out by the servants of the defendant company. After the-suit had been brought, the appellant, who had insured the property against loss by fire, paid to the administrators the amount of such insurance, and took an assignment of the-right of action, and was admitted to prosecute the suit.

The evidence, so far as it is material to the consideration of the present appeal, may be thus stated:

More than twenty-five years ago the mills, for the destruction of which this suit is brought, were established in the-northern part of the city of Vicksburg. The land upon which they were located was broken and irregular, and the dust,, bark, shavings and other debris of the mills were deposited near them, forming, eventually, a deposit of from eight to-eighteen feet. In the year 1883 the defendant company, either by agreement with the owners of the land or by condemnation proceedings, secured a right of way along a line-to the west of the mills. The record does not disclose the width of the right of way, but it appears from the evidence-that the eastern rail of the road is a little more than twenty-one feet from the spot on which the south-western corner of the building spoken of as the “shingling shed” was located. In preparing its way the company cut down through the-deposit of dust, shavings and debris spoken of above, to a depth of some eleven to seventeen feet, at a point opposite the shingling shed, until the earth beneath was reafehed. It then drove down piles, and on these erected a trestle, on [127]*127which its track was laid. The descent of the land to the west was precipitous, and if we have correctly understood the evidence, which on this point is not very clear, the track of the defendant company was on a trestle some twelve to fifteen feet high, which trestle was on an excavated shelf cut along the declivity of the hill west of the mills, the rails of the road being nearly on a level with the surface of the ground which remained between the trestle and the mills. The deposit composing the made surface on which the plaintiff’s mills stood, and through which the defendant company cut its way, became, when exposed to the sun and wind, very dry and inflammable. At the time of the fire it was in this condition on the side of the cut made by the defendant’s road, and along the surface from the cut eastwards, and to the shingle shed. In the shingle shed the Spenglers had a machine for cutting shingles, and the shavings so cut were permitted by them to accumulate around the shed and on the ground between that building and the track of the railroad adjacent.

On the 29th of July,, 1891, the mills and machinery were destroyed by fire, which fire the plaintiffs claim was set out by sparks or cinders which the servants of the defendant negligently permitted to escape from locomotive No. 74, which was at the time drawing a northward bound freight-train over defendant’s road.

The evidence of the plaintiff tends to show that the fire was communicated from the engine by sparks, which fell near the shingling shed; that the weather had been for some time dry and hot, and the material-along the space intervening between the mills and the road was in a very inflammable condition, as were such shavings as had accumulated around the shingling shed'; that a wind was blowing from the south-west at the speed of from ten to twelve miles an hour, and carried the sparks escaping from the engine adjacent to and upon the buildings and shed above described; that the train was, at the time, being run at a high speed, [128]*128variously stated by the witnesses as from six to twenty miles an hour; that the engine was exhausting heavily; that an unusual quantity of sparks and cinders were being emitted— one witness saying that they were as large as his vest-button, and another that they were about the size of the end of his little finger. Several witnesses for the plaintiff say that when the engine was passing along in front of the mills, the fireman was engaged in stoking or coaling the engine, and that this caused an unusual number of sparks to be emitted. One witness for the plaintiff testified that immediately upon the passing of the engine, he extinguished a fire, which was' beginning to burn at another spot on the Spenglers’ property, and which had been started by another spark from the engine, and that, very soon thereafter, his attention was called to the fire near the shingling mill, which spread with great rapidity, and destroyed the mills. Another witness stated that a burning‘cinder was lodged on the top of the shed, but did not burn, and that immediately afterwards the fire at the shingling shed began to spread. It is said by counsel for appellant that the wires of the spark-arrester used in engine No. 74 had become worn by usé to such an extent as to be out of repair. This part of the engine was exhibited to the jury, and has been brought here for our inspection, but we have riot thought it important to examine it.

The plaintiff also proved that, at the'rate of speed at which the train was running in approaching the mill, the steam might have been shut off entirely, and the train would, by its momentum, have run by the mills, and that, so running, no sparks would have been emitted; and also that the rule of the company was that trains, in passing stations or cars on which cotton was deposited or loaded, should, if practicable, shut off steam ; also that the wheels of the engine No. 74 slipped as it passed the mill, and that this was evidence that it had on too much steam.

For the defendant, evidence was introduced tending to prove that engine No. 74 was provided with all necessary [129]*129and proper appliances to prevent the escape of fire, and that the same were in good repair; that the servants of the defendant in charge of the. engine were competent; that the fireman was not engaged about the fire when the engine was passing the mills, but was busy adjusting the lubricator of the engine, and that the engineer was overlooking the work, to see that it was properly done; that the rate of speed was not over nine miles an hour, and that the engine was under a light head of steam, and was working lightly; that the engine was not exhausting to an unusual or unnecessary extent, nor emitting in unusual quantity sparks and cinders, nor were those emitted of an unusual size.

The train drawn by this engine was shown to have been composed of thirty-six loaded cars, which was not an unusual number. There were on the train three brakemen, the forward one being on the third car from the engine, the other about the middle of the train, and the third near the rear. Two of them and the conductor, who was in the caboose, saw the fire as the train passed. The front brakeman said it appeared tó be about the size of a barrel head, the one to the rear of the first, thought it was larger, and the conductor thought it was seven or eight feet in circumference.

On cross-examination of the witnesses for the plaintiff, it was shown that barrels of water were kept upon the mills and upon the ground adjacent to the buildings for use in extinguishing fires.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
70 Miss. 119, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mississippi-home-insurance-v-louisville-new-orleans-texas-railway-co-miss-1892.