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35 Pa. 128

Klauder v. McGrath

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided July 1, 1860

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1860-07-01

This was an action on the case by Bridget McGrath against Richard B. Jones and Rudolph Klauder, to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by the plaintiff, by reason of the falling of a party-wall, erected on the dividing line between two lots owned by the defendants, in consequence of their negligence in wrongfully permitting it to remain- standing, though well knowing it to be old, unstable, dilapidated, and out of repair.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1860-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently January 1952

7 state decisions

301860187018801890190019101920193019401950decided

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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¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Strong, J.

¶2The plaintiff below declared against the defendants for an injury which she had received, in consequence of the fall of a party-wall negligently sustained by them. The basis of the action was the negligence of the defendants. It is contended now, that they could not be held jointly liable. The maintenance of an insecure party-wall was a tort in which they were both participants. The act was single, and it was the occasion of the injury to the plaintiff. It is difficult, therefore, to see why both were not liable, and liable jointly. The case is not to be confounded with actions of trespass brought for separate acts done by two or more-defendants. Then, if there has been no concert, no common intent, there is no joint liability. Here, the keeping of the wall safe was a common duty, and a failure to do so was a common neglect. The rule often recognised is, that when an injury has resulted from the concurrent negligence of several persons, they are jointly responsible. Thus, if a passenger be injured by a negligent collision of the trains of two railroad companies, he may maintain one action against both: Colegrove v. New York and Harlem and New York and New Hampshire Railroad Companies, 6 Duer 382.* So, an action may be maintained jointly against, towns for an injury resulting from the insufficiency of a bridge which both towns are .under obligation to maintain: Peckham v. Burlington, Brayt. 134.

¶3The judgment is affirmed.

¶4 Affirmed by the Court of Appeals, in 6 Smith 492.

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