Alabama & Vicksburg Railway Co. v. Fried

Citations

• 81 Miss. 314

Syllabus

<p>1. Evidence. Memorandum. Aid to memory.</p> <p>A memorandum used by a witness to refresh his memory as to the quality and quantity of cotton in each of a large number of bales, for the destruction of which suit is brought, may be properly submitted to the jury, not as independent evidence, but to aid the jurors in remembering the testimony.</p> <p>2. Eibes. Railroads. Storing cotton near. Contributory negligence.</p> <p>The lessee of land adjoining a railroad who temporarily stores cotton bales thereon, using tarpaulin to cover them, and keeping a watchman at all times near the same, with barrels of water and other facilities .for extinguishing sparks, is not as matter of law, notwithstanding the inflammability of cotton, guilty of such contributory negligence as will preclude a recovery by him of the railroad company for the burning of his cotton, caused by fire negligently permitted to escape from its locomotives.</p> <p>3.' Same. Evidence of sx>at'hs from’other engines. Harmless error.</p> <p>In the trial of a case against a railroad company for the destruction of property by fire, caused by the company’s negligence in allowing fire to escape from a locomotive, the erroneous admission of testimony showing the escape of sparks from other locomotives will not be cause for reversal of a judgment in plaintiff’s favor where it is improbable that the result would have been different had such testimony been excluded.</p> <p>4. Same. Separate tortfeasm's.</p> <p>The principle that, where damage is caused by two or more efficient causes, a plaintiff suing only one of several wrongdoers must show the particular part of the damage caused by the defendant, cannot be invoked in the supreme court in defense of a suit for the destruction of baled cotton by fire because a witness testified that the fire department of the city reached the scene when only a few bales of the cotton were burning and, in efforts to extinguish it, scattered fire so as to ignite many other bales, th