Court Opinion

ID: 9808387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:36:54.31212+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:03.726218
License: Public Domain

ClaRK, O. L,
dissenting: The plaintiff having been non-suited, his evidence must be taken as true, with the most favorable inferences which a jury could have drawn therefrom. Stone v. Railroad, 144 N. C., 221. It appears therefrom that the defendants stored a quantity of dynamite in an old two-room shanty, about 60 yards from the county road and 50 feet from the railroad track, over which a half dozen trains passed daily. The rear end of the shanty towards the public road and railroad track was nailed up. At the other end, next to the river, the door was sometimes open and one of the windows was broken out. There was nothing to indicate that a dangerous explosive was stored there. The plaintiff and one McGhee were strolling there, when, without any notice to plaintiff or participation by him, McGhee fired his pistol at a knot hole in the rear end of the shanty. Neither McGhee nor plaintiff had any suspicion that dynamite was stored there. The shanty was located within the corporate limits of the town of Bridgeton, which contains 300 or 400 inhabitants, and not far from the bridge, from New Bern, over Neuse Eiver, and within 70 yards of a flag station on the railroad.
Upon the firing of the pistol an explosion followed, which cut down the trees 100 yards around, excavated a hole 12 feet deep and 16 feet square, moved the railroad track 12 to 15 inches, blew the end out of a house 70 yards off, and knocked the plaintiff 20 or 25 feet, burying sticks in his face an inch deep. Not a splinter of the house was left. The *546explosion occurred about fifteen minutes before the passenger train was” scheduled to pass. The dynamite was stored in the rear room, where no one would be likely to see it. A covey of partridges were picked clean by the explosion, and a dog was blown up into a tree. The explosion was decidedly felt in New Pern, across the river. It was also in evidence that the defendants White .& Co., the contractors who placed the dynamite in this house, had not worked in that vicinity for six months, their railroad work being completed, and trains were running regularly.
It ought not to require any argument to prove that it was’ the grossest negligence to deposit a high-powered explosive1, in a quantity capable of producing the above effects, in a house within 50 feet of a railroad track over which passenger trains were running, and within 60 yards of a much-traveled public road leading from a lai’ge town like New Pern, which was near by, without any notice posted on the house or other .indication of the deadly power concealed within. More esirecially was this so when the party who had placed the dynamite there had removed from the vicinity, for six months, and there was no purpose for which the dynamite could longer be used, and no one could suspect, in the absence of all notice or warning, that there was any dynamite in'the vicinity. Indeed, the passenger train, by only some fifteen minutes, missed this explosion, which moved the -railroad track bodily, sideways, 12 to 15 inches. It was not only negligence, but criminal negligence, to leave the dynamite in such a house, unguarded and without any notice posted, for six months after its owners had left, in such close proximity to a railroad track and a public road.
If it be conceded that McGhee was guilty of contributory negligence (which would debar him from recovery), the plaintiff was an innocent bystander and in nowise responsible therefor*. The plaintiff could not have been injured by the negligence of McGhee in firing his pistol without the concurring *547(and far greater) negligence of tbe defendants. They were, as to the plaintiff, joint tort- feasors, and at his option he could sue either or both.
Had this been a spring gun, the owner of the premises, who had left it there for six months without any notice, would be liable for any damage resulting. For a stronger reason, he is liable when it is 1,600 pounds of dynamite.
‘‘The owner of a farm' leased small parcels in the middle of it to laboring men. A farm road approached the holdings, but did not reach them. Towards the leased parcels from the end of the road the lessor stored a box of dynamite, with cartridge exploders, under a low shed made against a stump and only partially enclosed, and in a rough bound box, not always kept covered and never securely fastened. A child of one of the lessees who had been at work in the field went into the shed, broke one of the cartridges from the box and, • striking it with a stone, exploded it and was injured. Neither he nor his father knew what was kept in the shed or knew of any danger there or of any reason for keeping away from it, and there was no warning on or about the shed, except 'the word ‘Powder’ written on the box, which neither of them could have read: Held, that the lessor was responsible.” Cooley, C. J., in Powers v. Harlow, 51 Am. Rep., 154, 160.
It is useless to cite further cases. The hare statement of the above facts is the statement of gross negligence. Res ipsa loquitur. "Without such negligence on the part of the defendants, the plaintiff would not have been injured. McGhee would not have fired if he had had any reason to suppose there was any dynamite stored in such close proximity to the public l’oad and passing trains on the railroad. The want of any notice, the six months’ absence of the owners of the dynamite, and the completion of the railroad work in which it had been rised were enough to put him off his guard. But even if McGhee was guilty of negligence, the negligence of the defendants concurred in producing the injury, and both are liable to the plaintiff.