Cohn v. May

Citations

• 210 Pa. 615
• 60 A. 301
• 1905 Pa. LEXIS 353

Syllabus

<p>Negligence—Proximate and remote cause—Intermediate agency—Pleading — Variance.</p> <p>A cause is not too remote merely because it produces the damages by means of an intermediate agency. Where the injury is the immediate consequence of some peril to which the injured party is obliged to expose himself in order to avoid the peril arising from the defendant’s negligence, it is proximate enough.</p> <p>Where a lower tenant in a building negligently obstructs with boxes a stairway, so that during a fire an upper tenant is unable to escape by the stairway, and is injured while escaping through a window, the obstruction is the proximate and effective cause of the injury.</p> <p>In the above case the statement averred that the defendant was the landlord while at the trial it appeared that he was merely a tenant. The statement set forth facts sufficient to sustain a charge of negligence against the defendant. Held, that there was no substantial variance between the statement and the proof, inasmuch as the reference to the relations of the parties to the building was merely explanatory and might have been omitted.</p>