Court Opinion

ID: 6410514
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-25 11:52:20.354578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:51:21.530060
License: Public Domain

Metcalf, J.
Our opinion is, that the rule of law, on which the defendant attempts to sustain these exceptions, is not applicable to this case. Assuming that he was a mere agent, yet the injury for which this action is brought was not caused by his nonfeasance, but by his misfeasance. Nonfeasance is the omission of an act which a person ought to do ; misfeasance is the improper doing of an act which a person might lawfully do ; and malfeasance is the doing of an act which a person ought not to do at all. 2 Inst. Cler. 107. 2 Dane Ab. 482. 1 Chit. Pi. (6th Amer. ed.) 151. 1 Chit. Gen. Pract. 9. The defendant’s omission to examine the state of the pipes in the house, before causing the water to be let on, was a nonfeasance. But if he had not caused the water to be let on, that nonfeasance would not have injured the plaintiff. If he had examined the pipes and left them in a proper condition, and then caused the letting on *312of the water, there would have been neither nonfeasance nor misfeasance. As the facts are; the nonfeasance caused the act done to be a misfeasance. But from which did the plaintiff suffer ? Clearly from the act done, which was no less a misfeasance by reason of its being preceded by a nonfeasance.
The instructions to the jury were sufficiently favorable to the defendant; and the jury, under those instructions, must have found all the facts necessary to the maintenance of the action.

Exceptions overruled.