Bunting v. Hogsett

Citations

• 139 Pa. 363
• 21 A. 31
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 1004

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. Ordinarily, the question of proximate cause is for the jury; but, when the facts are not in dispute, it is for the court to determine whether or not an injury was the natural and proximate consequence of the negligence complained of, — a consequence likely to flow from the negligent act.</p> <p>2. One who commits an act of negligence will be held to have foreseen and to be responsible for whatever consequences, in the nature of things, may ensue therefrom without the intervention of some other independent agency, although, in advance, the result actually occurring might have seemed improbable.</p> <p>3. The inquiry must always be, whether there was any intermediate cause, disconnected from the prim ry fault and self-operating, which produced the injury; if there was not, the defendant’s act of negligence must be considered as the proximate cause of all the consequences resulting therefrom.</p> <p>4. The engineer of a locomotive, through whose negligence a collision is about to occur, may, perhaps, in any criminal aspect of the case, be justified in leaping from the engine to save himself from death or great bodily harm, even though in so doing he puts in jeopardy the lives of others.</p> <p>5. But, nevertheless, the engineer or his employer, may be held responsible for an injury which resulted from his primary act of negligence, and was rendered possible by his leaping from the engine and submitting it without control to the consequences of the collision.</p> <p>6. If an individual is injured by the concurrent and contributory negligence of turn parties, one of whom at the time is the common carrier of his person, both tort feasors are liable to him jointly and severally; the views on this subject expressed in Dean v. Bailroad Co., 129 Pa./ 520, re-affirmed and applied.</p> <p>7. When there is testimony that a plaintiff, suing for permanent personal injuries, has Bright’s disease of the kidneys, with little if any evidence to the contr