Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Yarbrough

Citations

• 57 Fla. 101

Syllabus

<p>1. The floatage of logs in a navigable river must be carried on with due and reasonable regard to the rights of a bridge owner, and others, and to the general usages and customs of navigation and commerce.</p> <p>2. While a railroad is not required to keep the open space under its drawbridges over a navigable stream free from obstructions to navigation when such obstructions are present without fault • on the part of the railroad, yet it is the duty of a railroad company to prevent the accumulation of wreckage or drift around the piers of its bridges which would interfere with .navigation.</p> <p>3. Where a raft has lodged against the fender of the pier of i railroad drawbridge on an important line of railroad about g o'clock at night, there being a navigable channel sufficiently wide to easily permit the passage of boats and rafts on either side of the pier, and the raft remained there until three o’clock the next evening, and when the agent of the owner of the raft in charge thereof has made no proper efforts to remove the raft, or to notify the owner of its situation, the river being in a rising condition, and the raft being a menace to the bridge, and a nuisance which the railroad company has the right to remove for its own protection and the protection of the lives and property, of those who had occasion to use the railroad, and the railroad officials had endeavored without avail to pull the raft away from the pier,, and then cut up the raft about three o’clock the next day after it lodged, and part of the logs were lost, and a suit was brought by the owner of the logs to recover of flic railroad company the value of the lost logs, on the trial of said suit it was erroneous to charge the jury “the duty upon the railroad before it broke up the raft to notify the ownw or his agents of their intention so to do, and to allow him a reasonable time and opportunity to take care of the raft after it was turned loose.” Such a charge was inappropriate to the facts. In