Curtin v. Somerset

Citations

• 140 Pa. 70
• 21 A. 244
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 804

Syllabus

<p>1. In order that a person who has been injured by an accident may hold another responsible therefor upon the ground of negligence, there must be a causal connection between the negligence and the hurt, and such causal connection must be uninterrupted by the interposition between the negligence and the hurt of any independent human agency.</p> <p>2. A contractor for the erection of a hotel building, who uses improper material in its construction and in other respects departs from the specifioatious embodied in his contract, so that the building when completed is structurally weak and unsafe, will not be liable to a guest of the hotel for an injury caused to him by such defective construction, but occurring after the owner has taken possession.</p> <p>8. The contractor would bo responsible to his employer for any loss sustained by the latter in consequence of his failure to erect the building in conformity with the requirements of the contract; but, to one who was not a party to the contract, and between whom and himself no confidence has been exchanged, he owes no duty which will siq:>pcrt an action: Godley v. Hagerty, 20 Pa. 387; Carson v. Godley, 26 Pa. 111, distinguished.</p> <p>(ia) In an action against a contractor for negligence in the construction of a building, the court charged that the defendant departed from the specifications “glaringly and knowingly,” in a manner “ for which he could have no excuse except the desire to increase his profits,” and that the plaintiff was entitled to recover “for this gross and almost criminal negligence: ”</p> <p>4. Such intense expressions were ill-suited to a judicial charge, and might seriously interfere with a calm and impartial consideration of the facts by the jury; moreover, the instructions thus given were grounds for reversal in assuming the province of the jury, as it was for the jury to pass upon the facts from which the negligence of the defendant was to be found.</p>