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10 Ind. App. 324

Peerless Stone Co. v. Wray

Indiana Court of Appeals

Decided June 20, 1894

Indiana Court of Appeals · decided 1894-06-20

<p>Pleading. — Complaint.-—Personal Injury. — Negligence.—In an action for damages for personal injury, the complaint is fatally defective where it does not appear, by direct allegations or necessary inference, that the injuries complained of were the result of defendant’s negligence.</p>

Relies on Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Railway Co. v. Thompson · Pennsylvania Co. v. Gallentine · Pittsburgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis Railway Co. v. Conn

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-06-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1911

6 state decisions

30189419001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Gavin, J.

¶1The appellee recovered judgment for personal injuries received while working in appellant’s stone quarry.

¶2The sufficiency of the complaint was challenged by demurrer, which was overruled, with an exception. The correctness of that ruling is presented to this court for its determination.

¶3The complaint alleges that on June 8, 1892, “a large pile of clay, dirt, and stone, which had been loosened by the removal of stone and left unsupported,” fell on the appellee while he was in the line of his duty, removing tools near it. Want of knowledge and of contributory negligence upon his part is also alleged.

¶4It is further charged that appellant had knowledge that the dirt was loose, unsupported, and in danger of falling, and carelessly and negligently failed to notify appellee of that fact.

¶5For how long a time appellant was chargeable with such knowledge does not appear.

¶6Neither does it appear, either by direct allegation or necessary inference, that the injuries received by ap*325pellee were the result of appellant’s negligence. This defect is fatal to the sufficiency of the pleading.

¶7In Louisville, etc., R. W. Co. v. Thompson, Admr., 107 Ind. 442, the law is thus declared: "We agree with appellant’s counsel that it must appear from the complaint that the death resulted from the negligent acts charged, for we understand it to be settled law that it must be shown that the negligence was the proximate cause of the injury.”

¶8In Pittsburgh, etc., R. W. Co. v. Conn, 104 Ind. 64, it is said: "It is not enough, in such a case as this, to charge the defendant with negligent acts, whether of omission or commission; but it must also be shown, with reasonable certainty, that such acts were the direct or proximate cause of the accident or injury, or the complaint must be held bad on demurrer for want of sufficient facts.”

¶9The causal connection between the negligence charged and the injury must appear. Pennsylvania Co. v. Gallentine, 77 Ind. 322; City of Greencastle v. Martin, 74 Ind. 449; Harris v. Board, etc., 121 Ind. 299.

¶10The only negligence charged is the failure to notify appellant of the condition of the pile of dirt. We can not say, as a matter of law, that such want of notification was the proximate cause of the injury.

¶11There are no facts which show the imminence or the seriousness of the danger which would have appeared to him even if apprised of the true condition of the dirt, etc. We can not say but that even with such knowledge he would have done just as he did do. Many cases arise where servants knowingly incur danger, more or less serious, in the regular discharge of their duties.

¶12Other objections are made to the ruling on the pleading, and to other proceedings in the court below, but as it is not probable that the case will again be presented *326or considered in the same manner as before, we do nut deem it necessary to determine them.

Filed June 20, 1894.

¶13The judgment is reversed, with instructions to the trial court to sustain the demurrer to the complaint with leave to amend.

¶14+-

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