Court Opinion

ID: 9808386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:36:54.306736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:03.725092
License: Public Domain

OonnoR, J.,
after stating the case: The injuries sustained by plaintiff resulted from the shooting by McGhee into the shanty, as set out in the record in McGhee v. Railroad, decided at the last term of this Court and reported in 147 N. 0., 142. In that case the defendant demurred to the complaint, in which it was charged that the shanty containing the dynamite was a public nuisance. It was then strongly insisted and, in the dissenting opinion, maintained that the demurrer admitted the allegation. His Honor, on the trial of this ease, heard the plaintiff’s testimony, from which it appears that the shanty was 60 yards from the public highway and that the window was “torn out,” the door stood open and the boxes containing the dynamite were so marked as to give warning to any person who would take the trouble to look into the door or the open place in which the window had been. The majority of the Court thought, for the reasons given in the opinion, that, conceding the truth of the allegation in the complaint, the dynamite stored in the shanty was a public nuisance, the plaintiff could not recover. Without repeating what we have so lately said, we. are of the opinion that the testimony here falls far short of showing that defendants were maintaining any nuisance. To store dynamite being used for a legitimate purpose necessary for the construction of a rail*544road on its own right of way, in a shanty with the door open and the window torn out, affording any person ample opportunity to see the danger, with the warning written or printed on the boxes, cannot violate any duty owing to a person going upon the premises without a license, either express or implied. The basis of the decision in McGhee's ease being that defendant owed no duty to him in regard to storing the dynamite, and that it could not by any reasonable prevision have foreseen that anyone would shoot into the shanty, we are unable to perceive any ground upon which the plaintiff’s case can be distinguished. If, as we then held, the explosion of the dynamite was not the result of any actionable negligence on the part of the defendants, but of the wrongful act of an independent, intelligent agent, we do not see how any liability can attach for the injuries sustained by plaintiff. If I have an article or a structure on my premises, entirely harmless unless interfered with by a trespasser, and I have no reasonable ground to anticipate that a trespasser will come upon my premises and interfere with the structure, and two trespassers, in company, come together, and one of them, by interference, causes injury to the other, the law will attribute the injury to the interference of the intelligent, intervening agent and not to the condition created by me. This principle is illustrated by the decision in Harton v. Tel. Co., 146 N. C., 429. It is there said that, assuming the pole to have fallen by defendant’s negligence, the act of Carpenter in replacing it in a "dangerous position was the causu causans of the injury sustained by plaintiff’s intestate. In what respect, upon principle, does this case differ from that? Conceding that defendant was negligent in storing the dynamite, which we do not hold, it would never have injured the plaintiff but for the interference of McGhee, his cotrespasser. As we held in Harton v. Tel. Co., supra, that the pole, lying across the road by defendant’s negligence, could never have fallen upon the plaintiff’s intestate unless *545Carpenter bad interfered with it, so here tbe dynamite was absolutely harmless but for McGhee’s act of shooting into the shanty. As it now appears, by walking a few steps he would have seen that it contained boxes marked “Dynamite.” Without pursuing the subject further, we entertain no doubt that his Honor, both upon principle and authority, correctly directed judgment of nonsuit. There is
No Error.