Court Opinion

ID: 9826434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 15:56:12.672171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:03.626018
License: Public Domain

The opinion of the Court was delivered by
Mu. Justice Gage.
It was stated by both sides at the bar that the chief issue in the case is whether the absence of lights in the passenger coach was a proximate cause of the loss of the passenger’s baggage.
All the testimony established the fact that there was at-most only one light in the coach, and it was the rear light and was dim. The conductor so admitted. All the testimony established the fact that the coach was crowded with workmen and was habitually so at that period of time.
The testimony tended strongly to prove that the passenger lost his bag on the journey from Sims. Station to Sumter, a distance of less than 40 miles.
1 Whether the carrier exercised due care towards the passenger, to put him into a dark and crowded car, was a question for the magistrate’s jury, and the question was decided by the jury for the passenger, and the Court did not review that finding.
2 Whether darkness was a proximate cause of the theft was a question of law for the Court.
3 If the carrier by its negligence towards the passenger gave a to be expected opportunity for the operation of another independent cause towards a loss of the baggage, to wit, the concealed hand of a thief, then the event may be referred to the negligence of the carrier. See Cannon v. Lockhart, 101 S. C. 59, 85 S. E. 233, and cases therein cited. Lights are put into cars for the protection of passengers, and upon the reasonable expectation that if lights are not so furnished hurt will come to the passenger. There cannot be two opinions about that. In the instant case the expected event so happened, to wit, the nonprotection of the suifig passenger and three other passengers as well.
*300The Court below based its opinion on two of our cases, Harrison v. Berkley, 1 Strob. 525, 47 Am. Dec. 578, and Carter v. A. C. L. R. R. Co., 109 S. C. 119, 95 S. E. 357. The facts of the Berkley case make strongly for the appellant, and so does the judgment. There are words of the Court in that case, quoted in the Carter case, which tend to support the trial Court in the instant case; but the words áre irrelevant to the facts of the Berkley case.
-The plaintiff in the Carter case was not a passenger, and the place was not a coach, so -the judgment in that case is not contrary to that we have reached in the instant case.
The trial Court relied also on a North Carolina case, Chancey v. Norfolk, 174 N. C. 351, 93 S. E. 834, L. R. A. 1918a, 1070, Ann. Cas. 1918e, 580, which does go to the extent contended for by the defendant here.
But we prefer not to follow it. The causes which operate to produce an event are numerous and occult; and there is danger that in tracing causes sight may be lost of the obvious.
■In the instant case there was undeniably a breach of duty by the carrier; there was also loss to four passengers of their baggage under the same circumstances; the obvious inference is that the latter event springs out of the first event.
The judgment of the County Court is reversed and that of the magistrate’s Court is affirmed.
Mr. Chief Justice Gary and Mr. Justice Watts concur.