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57 Vt. 46

Kennedy v. Morgan

Supreme Court of Vermont

Decided January 15, 1885

Supreme Court of Vermont · decided 1885-01-15

Case for negligence. Heard on demurrer to the declaration, March Term, 1884, Veazet, J., presiding. Demurrer sustained.

Relies on Fay v. Kent

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1885-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently August 1947

12 state decisions

301885189019001910192019301940decided

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

Powers, J.

¶2Negligence is a shortage of legal duty.

¶3All facts essential to the creation of the duty must be alleged in a declaration charging negligence upon such facts. If the facts stated in the declaration do not raise the duty, the duty cannot be established by proof of other facts not stated. Allegation as well as proof is the foundation of a right of recovery. If the pleader merely alleges the duty in his declaration, he states a conclusion of law; whereas the elementary rule is, that the facts from which the duty springs must be spread upon the record so that the court can see that the duty is made out.

¶4No intendments are made in favor of a declaration challenged by a demurrer.

¶5*49The defendant was engaged in a lawful work. No relation, obligation, or duty, to the plaintiff’s son, is alleged; nor does it appear that he had any knowledge of the son’s presence in the vicinity of his work.

¶6Nothing actionable then is disclosed in the declaration. 2 Addison Torts, 1147; Gould Pl. c. 3, s. 7; Fay v. Kent, 55 Vt. 557.

¶7There was no error in the judgment below; but the same is pro forma reversed and repleader awarded.

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