Case ID: wis_40/html/0587-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Cole, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Kronshage vs. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company.
    This action (brought in the circuit court for Grant county) was for a loss of plaintiff’s goods in consequence of the same fire mentioned in the foregoing case; such goods being then in defendant’s warehouse at Boscobel. The court submitted to the jury a number of questions for a special verdict; the first of which was, whether the burning of plaintiff’s goods was caused by a lack of ordinary care on the part of defendant’s agents; the third was, whether defendant had provided a night watch for the depot; while the second, fourth and fifth were identical with the first, second and seventh questions set forth in the report of the foregoing case. The jury answered the first, second and fourth of these questions affirmatively, and the third negatively; while as to the fifth, they disagreed. They also found the value of the property to be $779.98. There was no general verdict.
    The court denied defendant’s motion to set aside the special verdict and for a new trial, and rendered judgment for the plaintiff; from which the defendant appealed.
    The appeal was argued by John W. Cary, for the appellant, and submitted for the respondent on the brief of George C. Hazelton.
    
   Cole, J.

The only act of negligence found by the jury in this case was the failure to provide a night watchman. We have held in the case of Pike against the same defendant, that the omission to provide a night watchman for a depot situated as that at Boscobel was, where there was an average of only $500 worth of property stored daily, was not ordinary negligence. The second, third, and fourth questions were improperly submitted to the jury. The court also erred in not granting the motion for a new trial on the special finding. It is unnecessary to repeat what is said in the other case as to the impropriety of allowing the jury to speculate as to what would probably have happened if a night watchman had been kept at the depot.

JBy the Oowt. — The judgment of the circuit court is reversed,-and a new trial awarded.