Case ID: ill-app_197/html/0396-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Barnes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Thomas Pellum, Defendant in Error, v. Aaron B. Mead, Plaintiff in Error.
    Gen. No. 20,425.
    (Not to be reported in full.)
    Error to the Municipal Court of Chicago; the Hon. Joseph S. La Buy, Judge, presiding.
    Heard in the Branch Appellate Court at the October term, 1914.
    Reversed and remanded.
    Opinion filed January 11, 1916.
    Statement of the Case.
    Action by Thomas Pellum, plaintiff, against Minnie Hawkins and Aaron B. Mead, defendants, in the Municipal Court of Chicago, to recover for goods alleged to have been negligently destroyed in tearing down a bam in which the goods were stored. To reverse a judgment for plaintiff, defendant Mead prosecutes this writ of error.
    Abstract of the Decision.
    1. Principal and agent, § 173
      
      —what is duty of agent allowing goods to he stored without authority to protect goods. One who without authority rents a barn to another for the storage of goods incurs no special duty to protect such goods.
    2. Principal and agent, § 173
      
      —what duty agent tearing down barn owes owner of stored goods. In the, absence of any privity of contract or relationship between the agent of an estate and one who without authority stores goods in a barn on such estate, such agent in tearing down such barn owes the owner of the goods no duty further than to exercise reasonable care to protect them until the owner has a reasonable opportunity to remove them.
    3. Negligence, § 162
      
      —when evidence admissible that goods not taken away or destroyed. In an action against the agent of an estate to recover for goods alleged to have been negligently destroyed by defendant in tearing down a barn in which the goods were stored, and where the record does not show what became of the "goods, it is error to exclude evidence tending to prove an averment in defendant’s affidavit of merits that no goods were taken away or destroyed as alleged.
    4. Torts, § 30
      
      -—when evidence insufficient to establish joint liability. In an action against two defendants to recover for goods alleged to have been negligently destroyed in tearing down a barn where the goods were stored, the record fails to show a joint liability where it appears therefrom that one defendant was the agent of the estate ito which the barn belonged and the other defendant was the tenant of a cottage on such estate who had rented the barn to plaintiff without authority from the owner.
    Ota P. Lightfoot, for plaintiff in error Aaron B. Mead.
    George. W. Ellis and Richard E. Westbrooks, for defendant in error.
    
      
      See Illinois Notes Digest, Vols. XI to XV, and Cumulative Quarterly, same topic and section number.
    
   Mr. Justice Barnes

delivered the opinion of the court.