The same rule has also been enforced in two recent English cases. Piggott v. The Eastern Counties Railroad Co., 54 E. C. L. 229, and Smith v. The London & S. W. Railroad Co., 5 Law Rep. Com. Pleas, 98. . . . We now come to the two cases briefly relied upon by appellee's counsel. They are quite in point, but we are wholly unable to agree with their conclusions. One is Ryan v. The New York Central Railroad Co., 35 N. Y. 214, and the other is Kerr v. The Pennsylvania Railroad Co., decided by the Court of Pennsylvania, at its May Term, 1870. These two cases stand alone, and we believe they are directly in conflict with every English and American case, as yet reported, involving this question. As we understand these cases, they hold that, where the fire is communicated by the locomotive to the house of A, and thence to the house of B, there can be no recovery by the latter. It is immaterial, according to the doctrine of these cases, how narrow may be the space between the two houses, or whether the destruction of the second would be the natural consequence of the burning of the first. The principle laid down by these authorities and urged by the counsel in this case is, that, in order to a recovery, the fire which destroys the plaintiff's property must be communicated directly from the railway, and not through the burning of intermediate property. With all our respect for these Courts, we cannot adopt this principle. If these two decisions, in New York and Pennsylvania, are correct law, it must be held that, if fire is communicated from the locomotive to the field of A, and spreads through his field to the adjoining field of B, while A must be reimbursed by the company, B must set his loss down as due to a remote cause, and suffer in uncomplaining silence. . . While the law to be administered by the Courts should not be a mere reflex of uneducated public opinion, at the same time it should be the expression of a masculine common sense, and its decisions should not be founded on distinctions so subtle that they might have afforded fitting topics to the schoolmen. If the field of A contains forty acres, and the whole is overrun by fire, he may recover for the whole. But if A owns twenty acres next to the railway, and B the remaining twenty acres of the field, A shall recover, according to the doctrine of these cases, but B shall not. Yet, the test question is what is the proximate cause of the fire, and this ruling makes the proximate cause depend upon whether the field of forty acres is owned by one person or by two. It seems to us that the arbitrary rule enforced in these two cases, which is simply this, that when there is negligence, there may be a recovery for the first house or field, but in no event for the second, rests on no maintainable gound, and would involve the administration of the law in cases of this character in absurd inconsistencies. We believe there is no other just or reasonable rule than to determine in every instance whether the loss was one which might reasonably have been anticipated from the careless setting of the fire, under all the circumstances surround ing the careless act at the time of its performance. If loss has been caused by the act, and it was, under the circumstances, a natural consequence which any reasonable person could have anticipated, then the act is a proximate cause, whether the house burned was the first or the tenth, the latter being so situated that its destruction is a consequence reasonably to be anticipated from setting the first on fire. . . . We hold, as we held in reference to this same fire in the case of The T., P. & W. R. R. Co. v. Pindar, 53 Ill. 451, that it is in each case a question of fact, to be determined by the jury under the instructions of the Court. Those instructions should be, in substance, what we have already stated. If the fire is the consequence of the carelessness of the railway company, and the question of remote or proximate cause is raised, the jury should be instructed that, so far as the case turns upon that issue, the company is to be held responsible, if the loss is a natural consequence of its alleged carelessness which might have been foreseen by any reasonable person; but it is not to be held responsible for injuries which could have been foreseen or expected as the results of its negligence or misconduct. In the case before us, owing to the distance of the plaintiff's building from the one first set on fire, this question might not have been one of easy determination. . . . In this Court, the counsel for the company have not discussed the evidence. They place the case on the single ground, that the company is free from liability, because the plaintiff's house was set on fire, not immediately by cinders thrown from the locomotive, but by the burning of another house. Their position is, that this alone exonerates the company, without any reference whatever to the question whether the second house was so near the first that, in the then state of the wind and weather, its destruction was a natural consequence of the burning of the first, which any reasonable person could have foreseen and would have expected. This question they have not discussed. On the legal question upon which appellee's counsel thus rest the case we cannot adopt their views. . . . The demurrer should, therefore, have been overruled. The judgment is reversed, and the case remanded for trial. Judgment reversed. 443. PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY v. HOPE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 80 Pa. 373 1876 JANUARY 18th, 1876. Before AGNEW, C. J., SHARSWOOD, MERCUR, GORDON, PAXSON, and WOODWARD, JJ. Error of the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County; of January Term, 1876, No. 9. This was an action on the case issued May 15th, 1874, by Thomas Hope against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The cause of action was injury sustained by defendant from the burning of his fences, grass, and wood, by fire thrown from an engine of the defendants through negligence. The plaintiff was the owner of a tract of land in Chester County, through which the Pennsylvania Railroad passes. On the 18th of March, 1873, about 10 A. M., after the mail train westward had passed the plaintiff's farm, it was discovered that his fences and grass were on fire; before the fire was arrested his grass, fences, and wood had been much burned. The case was tried June 17th, 1875, before BUTLER, P. J. The plaintiff testified that the fire had burned over a considerable portion of two grass fields; had destroyed one hundred and fifty-two panels of fence and had injured much timber. Rubbish which had been thrown on the railroad had been burned. The rubbish was weeds and grass which had been cut the fall before and permitted to remain. The distance from the railroad track to his fence was five or six feet; from the railroad to the woods it was about two hundred yards. There was a fence between the field and the woods. About eight panels of fence were burned at the railroad. There was at the time a strong wind blowing from the northeast in the direction which the fire took.... The following are points of the defendants with their answers: The sparks emitted from the engine, and the fire thereby caused upon the line of the defendants' roadway were not the proximate cause of the burning of the fence between the pasture land and the woodland itself; both the fence and the woodland being at least six hundred feet distance from the place where the fire originated. The point was reserved. . . . The Court, amongst other things, charged: "Now, you will determine from the evidence whether the defendants were guilty of negligence (either as respects the engine or the condition of the roadway), by which the fire was kindled or spread on the plaintiff's property. If they were not guilty of such negligence, your verdict will be for the defendants, and you need go no further. If, however, they were guilty of such negligence in either respect, that is, negligence which kindled or spread the fire on the plaintiff — they are responsible to him for all the injury which you shall find to be the direct and natural result of their act. We repeat, the direct, natural result, because it is only for such injury that an individual or corporation is responsible on account of negligence that which flows directly, naturally, from one's careless act, and which he ought, therefore, to have foreseen, because common prudence would have enabled him to do so. For the remote consequences of such act consequences which common prudence could not anticipate and foresee he is not responsible, and in justice should not be. . . . The defendants contend that burning of the woods and the fence adjoining it was not such direct and natural result, but was the remote consequence of the fire, not reasonably to have been anticipated from starting it. If you find this to be so, you will not include the loss from this source in your verdict, if your verdict should be for the plaintiff. . . ." Verdict for the plaintiff. . . . Upon the reserved point the Court afterwards said: "We are now required to dispose of this point. We do so by denying it and directing judgment to be entered for the plaintiff for the whole amount of the damages assessed. Under the circumstances shown, we consider the proximate cause one of fact for the jury. Whenever the injury is the direct result of the act complained of, the natural result, such as should have been anticipated with reasonable certainty, it is not too remote." The defendants took a writ of error and assigned for error, the answers to the points and entering judgment on the reserved point. W. MacVeagh and W. Darlington, for plaintiff in error, cited Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Kerr, 12 P. F. Smith, 353; Fairbanks . Kerr, 20; Id. 91; Ryan v. N. Y. Central Railroad Co., 35 N. Y. 210. W. E. Barber, for defendant in error. . . Chief Justice AGNEW delivered the opinion of the Court, February 7th, 1876. Two principal questions arise in this case. The first has relation to the fact of negligence as causing the fire, and the second to the nearness or remoteness of the injury to the negligence causing it. . . . 1. The jury found the fact of actual negligence. 2. The second question is of importance, and in view of our own case of Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Kerr, 12 P. F. Smith, 353, requires a careful examination. . . . It is contended that the defendants are not liable for the injury to the plaintiff's fence and woods, on the ground that the injury was too remote from the original cause; and Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Kerr is cited as authority for this. We agree with the Court below that the question of proximity was one of fact peculiarly for the jury. How near or remote each fact is to its next succeeding fact in the concatenation of circumstances, from the prime cause to the end of the succession of facts which is immediately linked to the injury, necessarily must be determined by the jury. These facts or circumstances constitute the case, and depend upon the evidence. . . . In all, or nearly all cases, the rule for determining what is a proximate cause is, that the injury must be natural and probable consequence of the negligence, and that this might and ought to have been foreseen under the surrounding circumstances. These are the circumstances of the particular case, and from the nature of the thing must be referred to the jury. All the Court can do is to aid the jury by pointing to the relations of the facts. The jury must determine whether the original cause (that is, the negligence) is, by continuous operation, so linked to each successive fact, that all may be said to be one continuous operating succession of events, in which the first becomes naturally linked to the last, and to be its cause, and thus to be in the probable foresight of him whose negligence ran through the succession to the injury. . . . The practical knowledge and common sense of the jury applied to the evidence steps in to determine whether the injury is the real proximate result of the negligence, or, by reason of intervening and independent causes, must be regarded as too remote and the result not within the probable foresight of the party whose negligence is alleged to have produced it. Applying to the facts of this case this practical every-day sense, we cannot say that the verdict of the jury was not a well-formed judgment. These remarks are perhaps sufficient to place this case on a basis of principle. It is also sustained by precedents. . . . The principles announced in Fent v. Toledo, Peoria, & Warsaw Railway Co., 59 Ill. 349 [ante, No. 442], tend in the same direction; but it is a case more clearly allied in its facts to Penna. Railroad Co. v. Kerr [ante, No. 441], which it criticises with some acerbity, and an imperfect understanding of the case, and with a little confusion of thought. It was not held in Railroad v. Kerr that, when a second building is fired from the first set on fire through negligence, it is a mere conclusion of law that the railroad company is not answerable to the owner of the second (59 Ill. 362); or that if a fire is communicated from the locomotive to the field of A, and spread through his field to the adjoining field of B, A may be reimbursed by the company, while B must set down his loss to a remote cause, and suffer in silence (Id. 358). . . . The case of Railroad Co. v. Kerr will be found to be free from much of the criticism expended upon it. . . . The proposition came up in a bald and naked form, of a fire merely communicated from one house to another, and not the natural and necessary result of the burning of the warehouse. This was really the very question which ought to have been submitted to the jury, instead of being reserved in this form. . . What might have been its fate if it had been committed to the jury to determine whether the communication of the fire from one building to the other was a natural and probable consequence of the firing of the first, it may not now be easy to say. Yet, as the case was placed before the mind of Chief Justice THOMPSON, there is no reason to doubt the correctness of his conclusion. From the very essence of the thing, the natural probability of the consequence which ought to have been seen, is a matter of fact to be determined upon the evidence. Every case must depend upon its own circumstances. Upon the whole case the conclusion seems to be with the plaintiff below, and the judgment should be affirmed. 444. HAVERLY v. STATE LINE & SULLIVAN RAILROAD COMPANY SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 1890 135 Pa. 50, 19 Atl. 1013 No. 333, January Term, tember Term, 1882, C. P. 1890, Sup. Ct.; court below, No. 382, SepOn June 22, 1882, LeRoy Haverly brought case against the State Line & Sullivan Railroad Company, to recover |