Lake Shore Nitro-Glycerine Co. v. Illinois Central Railroad

Citations

• 75 Ill. 394

Syllabus

<p>Evidehce—instruction as to presumption of fact. In a suit against a common carrier, to recover for the loss of the greater part of a shipment of carboys, part containing nitric acid and the others containing sulphuric acid, the former being of much the greater value, the proof was unsatisfactory as to the proportion of each shipped; but there was proof tending to show that the car contained the acids in the usual proportions to be mixed in the manufacture of nitro-glycerine. The court, at the request of the defendant, instructed the jury that “ the legal presumption is, that, the burden of proof being on the plaintiff, all the said acids so lost, and not proven to have been nitric, and most valuable, must have been sulphuric, and of the least value: ” Held, that the instruction did not state a correct legal principle, under the evidence, and was highly calculated to mislead the jury. There is no legal presumption in such a case, but it is purely a question of fact, from the evidence, whether the carboys, or most of them destroyed, contained nitric or sulphuric acid.</p>