physical condition. He had no reason to suppose this injury would follow his acts. Held not liable. Phillips v. Dickerson, 85 Ill. 11. The shooting of a dog is not the proximate cause of a woman's illness resulting from fright thereat. Renner v. Canfield, 36 Minn. 90. A wire fence between defendants and plaintiff's land rusted and decayed through the former's negligence. The latter's cattle were killed by eating pieces of wire which fell on plaintiff's land. Held, that the death was the natural result of defendant's negligence. Firth v. Bowling Iron Co., L. R. 3 C. P. D. 254. A drunken passenger was lawfully removed from a train and placed away from the track a short distance. He lay down on the track and was run over by another train. Held, that his getting on the track was not the natural, necessary or usual result of having been left near the track. McClelland v. Louisville, etc., Ry Co., 94 Ind. 276. A liquor dealer put a man who had drunk to intoxication in a sleigh and started the horses homeward. Owing to the driver's condition an accident happened and a horse was killed. The liquor seller was held liable for the death. Dunlap v. Wagner, 85 Ind. 529, distinguishing earlier cases. The sudden starting of a train without signals made a laborer step aside into the edge of a sand pit. Some sand shortly after fell and pushed him against the cars. The starting of the train

was not the proximate cause. Handelun. Burlington, etc., R. Co., 32 N. W. Rep. 4, (Ia). A city is not liable for the injury resulting to a person from the breaking in a violent wind of a sound and properly secured liberty pole. Allegheny v. Zimmerman, 95 Pa. St. 287. The burning of cotton in a high wind by sparks from a burning building is not the proximate result of failing to forward it promptly from a cotton yard, where it was exposed to fire from locomotives and men smoking. Wharfboat Ass. v. Wood, 64 Miss. 661. See, further, Sharp v. Powell, L. R. 7 C. P. 253; Hullinger v. Worrell, 83 III. 220: Haley . Chicago, etc., R. R. Co., 21 Iowa, 15; Sledge v. Reid, 73 N. C. 410; Bank of Commerce v. Ginocchio, 27 Mo. App. 661. In this last case loss arose from sending a draft in a letter without a street address, which reached another man of the name of the payee who sold it to plaintiff.

That innocent causes intervene makes no difference. Rich v. New York, etc., R. R. Co., 87 N. Y. 382. Defendant without authority placed a barrier set with spikes across a private road. Some unknown person removed part of it without authority of defendant and set it up across the foot path. Plaintiff on a dark night was walking along the road. After passing the barrier he turned upon the foot path and walked against the part of the barrier which had been

placed there. Held, he could recover for injury thereby suffered. After stating the doctrine of Sharp v. Powell, that to cause a liability the injury must be a probable result of the act of the person charged and agreeing to it as applied to the facts in that case and doubting its applicability to these facts, the court says:

near.

"At the same time it appears to us that the case before us will stand the test thus said to be the true one, for a man who unlawfully places an obstruction across either a public or private way may anticipate the removal of the obstruction by some one entitled to use the way, as a thing likely to happen; and if this should be done, the probability is that the obstruction so removed will, instead of being carried away altogether, be placed somewhere * If the obstruction be a dangerous one, wheresoever placed, it may, as was the case here, become a source of damage, from which should injury to an innocent party occur the original author of the mischief should be held responsible." COCKBURN, C. J. Clark . Chambers, L. R. 3 Q. B. D. 327. A man left fish brine, poisonous to cattle, in barrels in the street. Another seeing cattle trying to drink it, spilled it in the street. Cattle licked it up and died. The leaving it in barrels in the street held the proximate cause. Henry v. Dennis, 93 Ind. 42. A workman fell from a ladder

which broke from a defect and knocked a man below him off a platform. The defect was the proximate cause of the latter's injury. Ryan v. Miller, 12 Daly, 77. A man lawfully walking near a railroad track was hit by a cow negligently struck by an engine and thrown off the track. The company was held liable. Ala., etc., R. R. Co. v. Chapman, 80 Ala. 615. A horse took fright from the carriage striking an obstruction in the way, and became unmanageable, and ran away, injuring the driver. Held, that the obstruction was the proximate cause of the injury. Clark v. Lebanon, 63 Me. 393, citing Willey v. Belfast, 61 Me. 569; Marble . Worcester, 4 Gray, 395. On proximate cause where the injury is caused in part by fright of horse and in part by defective condition of highway, see Ring v. Cohoes, 77 N. Y. 83; Wright v. Templeton, 132 Mass. 49; Spaulding v. Winslow, 74 Me. 528; Aldrich v. Gorham, 77 Me. 287; Perkins v. Fayette, 68 Me. 152; Crawfordsville v. Smith, 79 Ind. 308. If a wagon is overturned by an obstruction in a road, and after such an overturn the horse runs upon a railroad track and after running four miles is killed by an engine, the obstruction in the road is not the proximate cause of the injury. West Mahanoy v. Watson, 9 Atl. Rep. 430 (Pa).

If parties loan money on forged certificates of stock in a corporation, and afterwards obtain on these new

certificates from the corporation which prove worthless, the proximate cause of their loss is the forgery, unless they can show that they might have avoided the loss but for the neg. ligence of the corporation when the new certificates were applied for. Brown v. Howard Ins. Co., 42 Md., 384; S. C. 20 Am. Rep. 90. See further, McCafferty v. Railroad Co., 61 N. Y. 178.

'Scott v. Shepherd, 3 Wils. 403; S. C. 2 W. Bl. 892. And see Scott v. Hunter, 46 Penn. St. 192. In Baltimore & Potomac R. R. Co. v. Reaney, 42 Md. 117, 136, ALVEY J., says: "In the application of the maxim, In jure non remota causa, sed proxima spectatur, there is always more or less difficulty, and attempts are frequently made to introduce refinements that would not consist with principles of rational justice. The law is a practical science, and courts do not indulge refinements and subtleties, as to causation, that would defeat the claims of natural justice. They rather adopt the practical rule, that the efficient and predominating cause, in producing a given event or effect, though there may be subordinate and dependent causes in operation, must be looked to in determining the rights and liabilities of the parties concerned.

"It is certainly true that where two or more independent causes concur in producing an effect, and it cannot be determined which was the efficient and controlling cause, or whether, without the concurrence of both, the

event would have happened at all, and a particular party is responsible for only the consequences of one of such causes, in such case a recovery cannot be had, because it cannot be judicially determined that the damage would have been done without such concurrence. Marble v. Worcester, 4 Gray, 395. But it is equally true that no wrong doer ought to be allowed to apportion or qualify his own wrong; and that, as a loss has actually happened whilst his own wrongful act was in force and operation, he ought not to be permitted to set up as a defense that there was a more immediate cause of the loss, if that cause was put in operation by his own wrongful act. To entitle such party to exemption he must show not only that the same loss might have happened, but that it must have happened if the act complained of had not been done. Davis v. Garrett, 6 Bing. 716."

So if one negligently frightens the horse of another, and the latter runs against and injures a second horse, the owner of the latter may have his action for the negligence. McDonald v. Snelling, 14 Allen, 290. Forney v. Geldmacher, 75 Mo. 113; Billman v. Ind. etc. Co. 76 Ind. 166, where it is said it is unnecessary that the precise injury should reasonably have been anticipated. One injured by another's horse running away from fright at overturning of vehicle caused by ice negligently left in the street by a third person may recover from the latter. Lee . Union R. R. Co. 12 R. I. 383.

[*73]

company was not liable. McClary v. Sioux, etc., R. R. Co., 3 Neb. 44; S. C. 19 Am. Rep. 631. See Daniels v. Ballantine, 23 Ohio (N. 8.) 532: S. C. 13 Am. Rep. 264. Compare Read v. Spalding, 5 Bosw. 395. In New York the doctrine of the cases above cited is rejected. See Condict v. Grand Trunk R. R. Co., 54 N. Y. 500. In that case a common carrier was chargeable with delay in the transpor tation of goods, and they were burned in its warehouse. Earl, Com. "The question to be considered is whether the loss by fire was in such a sense a consequence of the delay as to impose any liability upon the defendant. There was a clause in the conditions annexed to the contract, that the defendant should not be responsible for damage occasioned by fire. There was a similar clause in the contract in the case of Lamb v. Camden & Amboy R. R. & T. Co., 46 N. Y. 271, and it was held that such clause did not exonerate the carrier from a loss occasioned by fire, in case the fire resulted from its own negligence. So in this case, if the loss can be attributed to the fault or negligence of the defendant, it must be held liable. But it is claimed that the delay on the part of the defendant in the transportation of the goods, which exposed them to the fire, was the remote and not the proximate cause of the loss, and hence that the defendant cannot be held liable for the loss without violating the maxim, causa proxima non remota spectatur. But the law is otherwise settled in this State. In Michaels. New York Central Railroad Company, 30 N. Y. 564, the defendant received at Albany, from the Hudson River Railroad Company, a

box of goods to be transported to Rochester and delivered to the owners. Instead of forwarding the box immediately, it detained the same in its freight house at Albany, to await the rendering of a bill for back charges by the Hudson River Railroad Company. While so detained, the goods were injured by being wet by an unusual and extraordinary rise in the water of the Hudson River: and it was held that the detention of the goods was negligence on the part of the defendant, and that such negligence having concurred in and contributed to the injury to the goods, the defendant was precluded from claiming the exemption from liability which the law would otherwise extend to it. The same rule was held in Read v. Spaulding, 30 N. Y. 630, and reiterated by RAPALLO, J., in Bostwick v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 45 N. Y. 712. A different rule was applied in Morrison v. Davis, 20 Penn. 171, and in Denny . New York Central Railroad Co., 13 Gray, 481. But those cases were cited in the argument of the cases above referred to in the Court of Appeals, and were not followed. The rule adopted in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania was also applied in Railroad Company . Reeves, 10 Wallace, 176. Those decisions are in direct conflict with the law as settled in this State, and cannot control the decision of this case. The defendant's delay was unreasonable. It was attributable to defendant's fault, and it exposed the goods to the fire by which they were consumed. Hence, its fault contributed to the loss, and it thus became liable."