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91 Wis. 214

McVoy v. Oakes

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided October 22, 1895

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1895-10-22

The appeal is from an order oyerruling a general demurrer to the. complaint. The defendants are the receivers of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company.

Relies on Bottoms v. Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1895-10-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently May 1925

5 state decisions

301895190019101920decided

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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MaRshall, J.

¶1According to the allegation of the complaint, defendants’ servants, with knowledge that the plaintiff’s ward, a boy of such tender years that he could not be *217held to a very high degree of care, too young certainly to be held guilty of contributory negligence as a'matter of law, was in a dangerous situation, recklessly and wantonly gave speed to the moving train, and suddenly jerked the child from his feet and threw him under the cars. It needs no-argument or citation of authority to support the proposition that such conduct, under the circumstances alleged, constitutes actionable negligence. We do not deem it necessary to consider how the boy happened to be in the position he was at the time of the injury. Without any reference to-how he came to be in such situation, defendants’ servants at least owed to him the duty not to knowingly, recklessly, and wantonly injure him.

The care required of railroad companies to prevent injury to small children upon the track is the subject of an extensive note to Bottoms v. S. & B. B. Co. (114 N. C. 699) in 25 L. E. A. 784.— Rep.

¶2By the Court.— The order of the superior court is affirmed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings according to law.

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